Social Capital - Putnam view point

Social capital is a concept explored in the social sciences from the nineties becoming so important in studies that analyze the dynamics of development of society.
The term "social capital" is generally understood as a connector of relations and values ​​that an individual builds during its existence in the society. The individual, in fact, since the first years of life absorbs to itself a set of norms and values ​​that come from being part of a family and society.

Growing up, the person will begin to expand his network of knowledge and to relate with people from different backgrounds. Coming in contact with different individuals experience and knowledge, the individual will go to increase their capital that will be developed within the company.

Therefore, an individual who in the course of its existence it relates to other individuals, increase their knowledge, allowing him to pursue purposes not otherwise easily accessible.
In fact, the combination of subjects from different experiential background of values ​​and makes it possible to solve collective problems, building relationships and networks of social capital that vary from individual to individual.
For this reason, there has been a growing interest in the study of social capital, identifying, by some authors as the key to understanding the dynamics underlying the development of a society.

The short history of research on the subject and its complex nature did not lead to a universally accepted definition of what is meant with social capital.

We will, however, wait until the end of the '80s to see how the concept of social capital has gained importance in social analysis. The two approaches that arise during this period and who consider social capital in different aspects that are individualistic and the collectivist. For both of the merit of being able to give importance to the concept under consideration in terms of not only economic but also sociological.
According to the two different perspectives and, in some ways, contrasting the importance of creating and increasing the share capital is to be both critical to the development of a society. The ways in which this process of growth is active, depending on the approaches, different.

Analyzing the collectivist approach, we note that it’s considered the creation of social capital as the product of a reciprocal exchange relationships are not based primarily on the utility an individual. The person who comes in contact with others will bring his own "capital" that will have fellowship with people, receiving from them their "social background".
This will create an exchange of experiences, knowledge and information that will make possible the achievement of goals not otherwise achievable only at the individual level.

Certainly, considering the capital in a collectivist approach, we can’t leave out the work of Robert Putnam. This author had the undoubted merit of giving importance to the capital and make it known, through his work, beyond the academic circles, providing a source of inspiration for a lot of following analysis.

Putnam defines social capital as the set of those elements of social organization - such as trust, shared norms, social networks - that can improve the efficiency of society as a whole, insofar as they facilitate coordinated action of individuals "

From this definition we can understand how collective action pursued by social actors (in order to pursue for hard to reach) the author is a coordinated action between individuals who give and receive trust in building social networks.

The concepts of trust and social networks, that in Putnam’s vision appear so important, for many authors become essential features in the analysis of social capital in a society.

Companies relations and reputation – Starbucks example

Years ago, it was usual by companies giving official statements that put let known the key informations relating to the company. The reputation was built thanks the contributions of traditional media (newspapers, TV, radio etc..), Having as a starting point communications produced by human resources, internal or external, where press agent or PR manager represented the main figures. Internet has radically revolutionized this model of corporate communication. Today there isn’t any  information that can’t be checked on the web. The news can be branched from any citizen and the tools available to make known a communication have multiplied: blogs, forums, video publishing sites, social networks, just to name a few.

Companies are establishing a new profile manager, the Reputation Manager which is tasked to monitor the reputation of a brand, mainly on the web directing all the initiatives aimed at improving the information circulating on the network about the company.

The observation is made particularly complex by their variety and abundance of items of information and promotion of comments, posts and opinions. A good way for companies is surely consider their customers, loyal or potential, not as locking rings of their production processes or marketing, but as part of its activities.

It 's important to be able to create personal relationships with individual customers, who have as final goal to gather criticism, opinions and negative comments. No longer able to hinder the movement of negative news, as could be done in the past, companies are required to manage their reputation in the best way to avoid being publicly, focusing on the web, which is potentially more dangerous than the average and now widely used by the public.

Some could advices could be: Always tell the truth, that’s first rule. Far from obvious, is to put into circulation only truthful information. It’s pretty useless, even counterproductive, to try to penetrate the market as a leader of social responsibility then if you implement child labor practices or processes with high environmental impact.

The second rule of good corporate reputation is to talk with customers. If, for example, are found on the net negative feedback is important to contact whoever posted them trying to better understand the critical areas and improve them. Recognizing an error immediately, endless strategic, is certainly more useful than a belated intervention when it is permanently damaged the reputation.

The third and last advice is using search engines. Google census of all sites, blogs, forums through the use of keywords as the name of your company can easily access all the pages that signal a company. In the Internet age requires not too much to impair the company's image was built thanks to massive investments in communications. Even a false report may be enough to create a negative boomerang effect in terms of image. That's because being on the web, work with a structured and continuous monitoring can help to immediately identify phrases, images and videos that can harm the company. And try to put away immediately.

 

Starbucks example

Even a solid company could lose its reputation in just one day. Is the famous newspaper "The Sun" to blame after many reports of ex-employees: "Starbucks wastes 23 million liters per day of water, an amount that would satisfy the daily needs of Namibia, one of the driest countries on the planet, and would fill an Olympic swimming pool every 83 minutes. "

According to the tabloid, Starbucks taps in a sink used to wash cooking utensils remain open continuously even when there is nothing to wash, pursuant to a measure of hygiene to combat bacterial reproduction.

In a late statement, the corporation said that the taps of the stores "are open at low pressure and only during opening hours to remove food debris, keeping clean the cooking utensils and prevent the proliferation of germs." This wasn’t enough to change the opinion of the clients and for the following months Starbucks had an huge loss account.

Social Networking: Starbucks and IBM cases

Social Networking is nowadays the ecosystem within companies and organizations achieve their objectives, taking a strategic position, to communicate and promote products and services outside their organizational boundaries. We can notice that everyday are more and more the companies or the organizations (public and private) that rely on a number of communication tools to strengthen business relations with all those people (customers, partners, stakeholder, etc..) that constitute the reference network.

The successful use of social networks is closely related to the ability to communicate in the Web 2.0 age. A symmetrical communication rather than vertical, where the propensity to listen is a resource to be connected with the own public, from whom get information, tips and useful suggestions to improve the supply of its services.

Until recently, the big companies were marketing from top to bottom. Radio, TV, Newspapers, Internet, and advertising in-store paved the way to success. With so many people spend so much time on social networks, these companies had more “space” to cover. From Strabuck passing through IBM, all the companies have taken advantage of social media sites to tell the world their stories, and their wonderful business. Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter: all the social networks are fundamental.

Companies use every resource they can catch from everyday life. Youtube is filled with advertising, new movies, instructional videos and tutorials. On Facebook, customers can become fans of their favorite businesses. Twitter allows companies to provide customers with live updates, free gifts and special deals.

What link all these networks is their ability to allow customers to give feedback and feel  a personal connection with their favorite shops or restaurants. Companies know that seem connected in a friendly way is the key to success. Every time that the customers write on the Sturbucks Facebook page or respond to tweets from IBM, provid companie useful information. Thanks Twitter, a customer can ask questions about a purchase and receive a reply on the same page in less than a minute, and this is a very powerful thing.

Looking at how Starbucks uses Twitte, we can see that: first, Starbucks has a clear and brief profile with a link to his official website, what compulsory. On the page there is also the logo, another thing to don’t forget. And then there's the content. Customers posting all kinds of things they want, including questions like "what ingredients are in the whipped cream", "how much it cost something", or "until the stores are now open."

The comments include enthusiastic exclamations on the wonderful coffee and other products that customers can buy. Starbucks reply very quickly to all the questions and comments . Starbucks also offers exclusive deals and discounts available only on Twitter. What does it means? It means that with these tricks there are about a million excited fans who are dependent on the Twitter updates. Using Twitter, these big companies know what they're doing and they know how to take advantages.

IBM is another company that use the power of social network . Many managers have a blog and do activities in social media on topics such as “cloud computing” and create connections,  with LinkedIn and Twitter,  between people representing the company in order to stay in touch and maintain relationships with their customers. Others IBM employers use Facebook for the same objective; but there are others really important called “seekers”, (kind of voyeurs) who are on social media sites to listen the conversations and understand where there may be potential sales opportunities.

These two examples may clarify how is big, innovative, cheap and functional this world of Social network for companies strategies.