I Need Social Media!
Clients regularly approach MiXT Media Strategies requesting social media help:
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Can you help me set up a Facebook page?
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How do I “do” Twitter?
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I want to “use” bloggers to broaden the reach of my marketing campaign—where do I find them?
These are the wrong questions for two reasons. First, these are the wrong questions because social media is not about the tools and technologies.
“Huh? What about all of the blogs, social networks, RSS feeds, video-sharing sites, etc.?”
Nope. Those are tools. Social media is about the capabilities that these tools enable. Successful social media starts not with the tools and technologies, but with good, old-fashioned business planning: mission, vision, goals, objectives, strategies.
Second, these are the wrong questions because they are selfish. The behaviors and capabilities that social media tools enable are engaging, participatory, relational—social. They are not something that you “do” to your customers to elicit click-throughs, response rates or sales.
To create a successful social media strategy for your organization, you must first understand social media in context.
What’s Going on Out There
There are two world-changing dynamics in action right now. First, the proliferation of social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies is fragmenting the communications landscape. Not only are there now simply more communication choices, but these new tools and technologies enable us to further fine-tune our communications by speed, formality, time and place. We have myriad choices never before possible. How we communicate is now as complex as what we communicate.
Second, we as a culture are emerging from the Broadcast Era and entering the Collaboration Era. This means a marked change in the way we communicate. In the Broadcast Era, we pushed information AT our audiences through traditional, one-way media vehicles. The Collaboration Era brings about a whole new set of capabilities that change our communication expectations. No longer are people satisfied receiving information, they expect to be able to jump in, engage and be a part of the two-way conversation. The opportunity to participate in new and meaningful ways is changing us from content consumers to creators, participants, collaborators…communities.
The Opportunity: a Case for Collaboration
Collaboration makes organizations more efficient and more effective. Organizations that embrace collaborative practices—supported by innovative social media tools and technologies—will decrease costs and increase sales by increasing satisfaction and retention of employees, customers, vendors and partners.
The Challenge: a Catch-22 of Catch-22s
What complicates things is that each of these dynamics, in and of itself, is a Catch-22.
- We can’t understand the benefits of collaboration until we collaborate; and yet we can’t truly collaborate until we understand the benefits of doing so.
- We want to understand the value of social media tools before we invest our time and energy in using them; and yet, we can’t truly understand the value of social media tools until we use them.
What further complicates things is that collaboration and social media tools together create a Catch-22.
- We can’t truly understand the benefits and possibilities of social media tools until we use them to collaborate; and yet we can’t truly understand the benefits of and possibilities for collaboration until we utilize social media tools collaboratively.
collaboration social media
The confluence of these two separate but connected Catch-22s presents a solution: the Confluence Process. Teaching organizations to use social media tools and catalyzing a cultural shift towards collaboration requires a process that manages the interplay between these two dynamics.
The Confluence Process that MiXT Media Strategies has developed enables organizations to use social media tools to learn the value of collaboration while simultaneously engaging in collaboration to understand the full extent of social media tools’ value.
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Great post Maxine! I agree 100% – it’s like I’m always saying, “it’s not about the technology, it’s about what the technology enables.” Your point about needing to see the value in collaboration before wanting to collaborate is especially timely – I’m working with one of our VPs on his internal blog, and he told me that he just doesn’t see the interaction among that many people out there and doesn’t see the value in taking time out of his day to blog. I told him that people WILL start interacting with him on his blog if he just continues to write. He then told me to get the people going to his blog so he could see the number of people there, but he didn’t want to spend any more time blogging.
So, you want a lot of traffic to your blog, but you just want them to hang out there with bated breath until your next post? Ummm…it doesn’t quite work like that anymore….
Perhaps the New York Times needs to credit you Maxine? I agree with your points. I also would add that in the collaboration, there is give and take just like in the real world. Many people have created a perception of social media being all one. But obviously it has many moving parts. There is no one definition of it, nor is there one approach. However, as collaboration “confluence” as you so aptly call it grows, so will the need for more systemic approaches. Social Media is here and growing. The big questions now are how best to bring real life truths and best practices into the arena in ways that benefit all.
Good Post. I can already hear the New York times trying to figure out what their writer has been up to!
Good shake-up thinking, Maxine. Striving to ask the right questions is something we all need to do more regularly. The catch-22 paradox (and use of the infinity sign!) is an effective schema.
I might suggest that we can temper some of the idealism concerning what socialmedia is supposedly supposed to do. We need to acknowledge that a significant ‘meta’ dimension exists wherein those steeped in socialmedia get self-reflexive about it. That is another way to spit out McLuhan’s old saw, “the media is the message”.
It may follow that unless the would-be twitterer, for instance, is prepared to learn about it by reading thousands of posts “about twitter”, it’s a dead letter. It’s a craft. It’s an art. One has to study it or one will always stink at it. Most of us in this sm sphere are deeply fascinated by the tools themselves. I see the best as veritable artisans!
So I think success comes by way of two routes. Social media has to both instruct AND delight.
Thanks for a provocative post. You’re a crafty writer!
Bob
Yep! ‘Nuff said.
Bob, thanks so much for reading and for commenting. I like and agree with your take on using social media as an artistic pursuit. Indeed, the more we do, the better we get. Furthermore, I think that those of us who grew up in the 20th century have to work harder at using the tools to with facility and skill.
Alan, oy, I certainly didn’t mean to start a storm with my earlier tweet about Saul Hansell’s NY Times piece, “Government 2.0 Meets Catch-22” http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/government-20-meets-catch-22/
It’s just that the timing was rather uncanny….
Thank you for your comments.
Steve, your comment reminded me of the old lottery jingle: you’ve got to be in it to win it! You have to participate in social media to find it valuable, but you have to focus on the participation rather than the initially-desired (superficial) value in order to find TRUE value from your participation.
Maxine,
Well needed post. I just tweeted it. It’s funny how scared people are of social media, as if it were a foreign language. It’s really one of those things that you have to just jump right into and you’ll start noticing the benefits immediately. I was really iffy about Twitter, and I downloaded Tweet Deck and now my computer and phone are synched and the tool is like my live interactive news forum.
Thanks for writing about this. My industry needs to learn more about social media. The higher ups we try to contact are rarely on Linked In and almost never on Twitter. And Facebook just doesn’t make sense for our audience.
But hey, if they were plugged in it would make our job so much easier.
Ashley
Marketing Coordinator | Quantum Retail
http://twitter.com/quantumretail