“Just Do It” Isn’t A Social Media Strategy
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
So you hear the good news that your boss/client wants to get started with a social media strategy. Before you start jumping for joy, does the conversation sound anything like this?
Boss: Let’s get on social media – let’s start with Twitter
You: Why? What’s the objective?
Boss: We’ll think about that later, just do it
If that’s what it sounds like, I can almost guarantee in 6 to 12 months that very person is going to be asking you “so how have we done on Twitter?” and you’re going to say “err but we didn’t specify any goals” and it’s going to be a one way ticket to hell. And you know what? In all likelihood if you’re doing it for the sake of “just doing it”, it’s probably not going to be work you’re going to be proud of anyway.
Instead, the conversation should go something like this:
Boss: Let’s get on social media – let’s start with Twitter
You: Why? What’s the objective?
Boss: I want to use it to improve customer service
You: So we’re going to monitor all mentions of our brand and respond to complaints and rectify them?
Boss: Yes
Replace “Twitter” with “Facebook” or “blog”, replace “improve customer service” with “increase lead generation” or “decrease costs’ and you get the gist.
Ideally it should go even further than this to identify whose time will be allocated to this, how much time and how the initiative will be measured.
You need to do this from the get go. Set the expectation early that social media efforts – while free/cheap – take time. Don’t let your desire to do some social media work/please your boss/please your client get in the way of this. It’ll save you a world of hurt later.
How do you deal with “just do it” requests? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
[image credits: themachobox]
Tags: blog, brand mentions, customer service, decrease costs, facebook, increase lead generation, just do it, leadgen, social media, social media goal, social media objective, social media strategy, themachobox, ticket to hell, twitter
