Social media began mainly as an outward-facing effort from public relations, marketing, or corporate communications departments to try to influence, broadcast, or market to social media users.
This is according to Neal Schaffer, international speaker and author who notes today social media has become the responsibility of every department:
Over the years, businesses have realised the conversation is not a one-way monologue, but a two-way dialogue between businesses and consumers or other businesses, says Schaffer.
"Social businesses are aligned with the social Web and use social media to influence strategic decision-making, says Schaffer. While social is not relevant for every business decision, the ability to harness social at any given moment is a powerful one that keeps social businesses more in-tune with what their customers are thinking, as well as public opinion on their products, competitors, or industry."
Schaffer points out social businesses have also gone through an evolution internally, where there is much more internal collaboration because of the role that social media can play throughout the enterprise.
Departments that might have never collaborated deeply before find themselves shoulder-to-shoulder trying to meet each other's objectives, and thus a social business has already realised a cultural shift of sorts that others haven't, he says.
According to Schaffer, there are several hot-potato issues facing businesses on the social journey. Most executives aren't heavy users of social media themselves, and unless they become educated, they might not buy in or understand the importance of social business, he adds.
Social will touch every department - so it's important that executive buy-in is sought and converted at an early stage, says Schaffer. "Employees must be trained not only on how to best leverage social media for their specific jobs, but also best practices on how the professional demographic should use social media."
Schaffer believes social media will inevitably bring various departments together, not only in discussion, but in an unprecedented amount of collaboration.
If company departments are already collaborating deeply on a wide range of issues, this doesn't become a problem. For companies that still operate in silos, though, this is a challenging aspect of becoming social, he adds.
Join Schaffer and other industry experts for controversial conversations and intimate roundtable discussions at the ITWeb Social Business Summit 2015, on 15 October.
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