I find myself increasingly irritated with some of the event invites I receive about “understanding” social media. I fathom to say at this point in its evolution that if you don’t know what social media is, understand the base value, or comprehend the potential exposure gained from it, than there is no need to come out of the rock you’ve been living under.
It’s a main stay of the very fabric of our society from a personal and professional level. No further seminars or presentations should be hoarded together to show statistical analysis of how many people you can reach based on averages of friends across multiple networks (Facebook, Google +, Twitter, LinkedIn). The next level of conversations needs to now migrate from awareness to value. While awareness inherently has value it comes to a point where this information can be easily translated among peers or colleagues without having to waste half a day on an up sell pitch for marketing services over it.
The new value is departing wisdom about:
- Creating the framework for management of social marketing.
- Understanding technologies that help automate the management of social media.
- The appropriate frequency of social engagement.
- A baseline for resource costing on applying a tangible effort that yields results.
- Models for tracking success and defining tangible success metrics.
I’m certain this post will be twisted and contorted by over zealous social media experts claiming I’m reducing a complicated structure into a box that doesn’t exist. It’s fair to say that I disagree in a couple key areas. The first is that there is substantial case studies and pioneers (both companies and experts) that have established there is a framework to be implemented that doesn’t govern the details of a social media campaign but it’s execution. It certainly helps to establish baseline requirements for having the necessary resources in both great people and technology for the successful implementation of the plan measured with engagement. I use the term engagement simply because the purpose and very nature of Social Media is not to “push” information but to create one to one relationships, understand your clients base, and establish information channels for sharing.
Second, not all tools are created equal and in the social media space there is no question that whatever need your looking to fill. You’re going to find a ton of companies providing something that offers some sort of solution. I know that when I discuss with clients I look away from the obvious and begin to focus on tools that increase the automation of managing social media so that the staff can focus on it’s mission, not three to four hours a day of sharing information over an untold number of forums, blogs, social media sites, etc.
Finally, your not giving away anything by sharing this information and if you feel that sharing the items I’ve listed above damages your ability to retain consulting engagements I imagine the offering you have for helping your clients is only effective to a small group of businesses that have absolutely no idea what’s going on. The areas of helping companies effectively grow successfully with social media is in the identification of unique businesses with targeted objectives, the plans to meet those objectives, and most importantly to me particularly, the execution of those plans.
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