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The evolution of social media has for the last two years been rocket-up-my-ass-blowing-away from the number of media, users, tools and services to the number of experts, ninja’s, cowboys and gurus. And way to often it almost seems like the cure for everything for companies.
To be honest in my darkest hour – I do cast voodoo look-a-like spells over the self-proclaimed ninja’s and guru’s around who act more like cry-babies or neglected kids – cursing and complaining every time they think a company or an organisation is not using social media the way they think it should be used. And way to0 often, the so-called gurus have their own experience from handling their Facebook profile or just earned 10 mayorships on Forsquare – which of course makes them the ultimate advisor in social media.
Social media is not the cure for cancer
No doubt that the social media evangelist will argue this, but in all honesty, social media is not going to replace all your other communication or marketing activities. Your company is not going to be on the next fortune 500 list because you get a Twitter profile or start blogging. And it’s not going to help the company that makes shitty products – probably just the opposite.
The expectations of what social media can solve is building a gigantic bubble burst dream, so please don’t buy in to everything you hear.
Social media is a part of the mix
However social media is here to stay, it’s a people driven media with a tremendous potential, it’s a very important media to consider using and implementing in various parts of your organisation – from your client support centre, CRM use to internal and external communication and marketing.
Social media will probably be one of the most significant media for the future company: the company interested in talking to consumers, the board of managers that are actually interested in talking to their employees, the company that embraces words like involvement and co-creation.
Right now you see activities where there is no deeper link between the companies’ other media activities and the ones on social media – and this link is damn important – social media is not a stand alone media, it can be an important supplement with the activities, but it cannot in 8 out of 10 times stand alone.
5 tips to secure integration in the mix
• Acknowledge social media as a strategic channel for your company and not just a lab thing.
• Structure the organisation’s approach to the use of social media, for instance make someone on a media strategic level in charge of social media.
• Secure that the responsible for social media in your organisation gets in early in the loop when the media mix on a given campaign or other projects is developed.
• Put up a clear role and specific goals for what social media should contribute to the campaign or a project. Keep measuring and evaluate on the goals.
• Try to create and implement and create a link from your other media channels towards your activities as often as possible – links can be created from offline media like TV, print, radio, event to online media like banner-ads, adwords or email signatures.
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