How Cisco uses Social Media

I often analyze how large companies are leveraging Web 2.0 and social media tools.  Recently I came across a talk from Jeanette Gibson who shared terrific insights on Cisco’s approach to social media and how it engages Customers, Partners, and Press with Social Media.

Gibson states “In a world where everything is open, we value openness and transparency.”

There are three ways that Cisco uses social media, especially blogs to drive customer engagement:

1) Thought leadership

According to Gibson, “Blogging is about creating conversations with customers, partners, employees, and the public.”

Cisco’s been blogging for over 4 years and the first blog was on government affairs. It was focused on having highly targeted 1:1 conversations and later their blogging efforts expanded to include other topics. However, their blogs tend to be more around larger industry topics such as Green IT rather than individual product-focused.

More recently Cisco’s been using video to increase engagement between their customers and Cisco executives.  Cisco’s using flip cameras to follow their executives around. They capture their executives on video and repurpose that content where ever possible. One example is where Cisco CEO, John Chambers talks about what’s happening at the Channel Partner event, on their blog which is very open and visible to everyone.

She cited Padmasree, the well-known Cisco CTO as a great example of successful executive twittering. One way that Padamsree uses Twitter is to get ideas for one of her keynote speeches. She sent out a question on Twitter – “What’s the future of collaboration?”. She got an overwhelming response to her questions and she incorporated this direct feedback from the audience in her talk.

2) Events are an area where Cisco leverages social media as event and travel budget cuts are driving the need and demand for virtual events. The company has been hosting events via Twitter: “Tweetup” Cisco TelePresence Tweet-up with Guy Kawasaki(virtual meeting). Cisco has set up public telepresence suites where anyone can come in and use these for instant conference with Cisco. In addition, the company also organizes many virtual partner events using teleconferencing technologies.

3) Global product launches are typically very expensive and this presented yet another opportunity for Cisco to leverage social media. The company has moved from PR-based launch executions in 2005 to messaging cycles with real-time global impact, two-way customer interactions, and community building events in 2009. This has resulted in 50-75% cost saving and created opportunities for thought leadership. It went from transactions to interactions and engagement. Bigger launch at lower cost.

No social media conversation would be complete without the ROI/measurement discussion.  Cisco like many other pioneering companies is grappling with the revenue question. Currently, it uses a mix of qualitative vs. quantitative. They have a set of standardized metrics for blogging and every blogger has access to the analytics on their own blog as well as that of their peers. So they are able to compare their blog’s traffic with that of other bloggers. They also use an external agency for brand monitoring.

While Cisco is very focused on ROI, there are no standard metrics, so it uses a variety of measurements. For example: they look at the free media impressions from social media activities and measure how much it would have cost them to assess cost savings. However, since social media is resource and management-intensive, the cost for it is still fuzzy.

Cisco has just started testing ways to leverage social media for sales and is working to get more traction for direct sales/revenue impact from social media.

Key take-a-ways from this honest, insightful presentation:

• Make the tools work for you, “First decide what you want to do and then decide on the tools.”
• Key is finding a few focus areas in social media and doing it well, rather than trying everything and not succeeding.
• Openness and transparency in social media has to start from the top. Senior management needs to be engaged and lead by example.
• Budget constraints and travel restrictions favor the use of social media and virtual events, which can help with cost savings.
• The ROI/monetization question is becoming increasing important but there’s isn’t one standard set of metrics or methodology for calculating that yet, every company uses their own metrics.
• Social media doesn’t only save cost, but can be more impactful than traditional marketing/PR. This is a great point to keep in mind, when you’re pondering ROI on your social media initiatives.