Quite a few companies who started early in social media — primarily on a leap of faith — are now touting their “case studies” and advising other companies on how to turn themselves into a social business. While their perspective and their stories can be very helpful in generating ideas, social media have evolved beyond the need for a leap of faith, and leaders pursuing social business transformation should demand more from their agencies and consultancies, in three important ways:

1. Business Case: Social media are no longer the wild west — although it feels that way to many companies. We have the data to develop robust business cases that pass the CFO’s sniff test.

   We can translate the goals of the business into social media initiatives that create measurable business value. And we can estimate the expected business value within the kinds of predictable ranges that we would normally expect from other forms of business transformation, such as CRM transformation, or creating shared services groups.

   Demand a rigorous, data-driven business case, or you risk (1) over-investing in social media, or (2) investing in the wrong capabilities.

2. Focus on a Business Goal: There is a big difference between using social applications for knowledge management and collaboration, versus social media marketing. Each require different expertise, enabled by different technology vendors, with different value propositions.

   If you scope your social business transformation effort to address all social applications, including employee productivity, retention, marketing, PR, hiring, customer service, etc., then you are, by definition, boiling the ocean.

   Step back and pick a scope that is actually manageable. Maybe start with social media marketing, since that is where there is likely to be a clear and quantifiable business case. Then work your way into other domains.

3. Caveat Emptor: When a technology company offers to share their internal lessons with you, ask yourself whether they are also selling their products. Many purveyors of “case studies” and “lessons learned” also sell social media command centers, or social business applications, or listening tools, or analytics tools, etc.

   Ask them about the business outcomes — and not just anecdotes, but recurring, consistent business outcomes. You’re not going to invest millions of dollars to achieve anecdotes.

The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed.

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Chris Boudreaux leads social media strategy and measurement efforts for large B2C and B2B brands. Follow Chris on Twitter, or email Chris to continue the conversation.

In a speech to summer interns at Microsoft, David Meerman Scott suggested that anyone interested in Marketing or Communications simply decline to work at any company that bans social media use by employees.

Before readers who work in pharma or investments industries get too excited, David sits on our Advisory Board at Converseon, and I know he understands the realities of regulated industries. He worked in the investment business for years. He simply believes that the most talented people coming out of college today can choose to work at companies that let them communicate in the channels where they live and breathe every day: social and mobile.

David also cites a recent study of 3,000 international college students and recent grads, by Cisco, which found that:

• More than two in five would accept a lower-paying job that had more flexibility with regard to device choice, social media access, and mobility than a higher-paying job with less flexibility.
• One in three consider the Internet to be as important as air, water, food, and shelter.

You can see David respond to questions from one of the interns here:

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Chris Boudreaux leads social media strategy and measurement efforts for large B2C and B2B brands. Follow Chris on Twitter, or email Chris to continue the conversation.