Really got your attention with that headline, didn’t I? It’s not just a ploy to get cheap clicks.
Enough with the Hype
As you are surely aware by now, I’m a huge fan of social media, new media, social networking, sharing/bookmarking, and pretty much every other cool social offering out there. I spend countless hours playing with different services, sites, and techniques on a weekly basis. Heck, I’ve met some good friends and amazing colleagues through various forms of social networking.
Let’s get one thing straight though…most of what is being thrown around as strategic advice is nothing but some good ol’ fashioned hype. Yes, there is a time and place for social networking and social media. Yes, there appears to be a list of actual money-making techniques that can be employed to derive financial value from these services. But a great deal of this yammering about ROI is just that…talk.
I’ve seen a few select examples of how social media can be used for B2B in a measurable fashion, but I’ve also seen many more examples of futile attempts at replicating these successes. And that’s not even to mention the widespread list of social media “gurus” and “experts” who throw around pie-in-the-sky advice about how you should be using social media. My message to them: Show me real world examples.
Social Media is NOT a Strategy
I recall earlier in my career when the Internet and email marketing were the hot trends. We had long conversations about our “email marketing strategy”, right after we finished talking about our “trade show strategy”, “web site strategy”, and “direct mail strategy.” We thought we were cutting edge, until someone who actually knew what they were talking about chimed in.
“Do you understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy?”
No one in the room could give a reasonable answer to that question. Luckily, I was just a couple of years out of school, so I could chalk up my “deer in the headlights” response to inexperience. But today I’m seeing the same trend. I see all of these people talking about social media strategy, content strategy, even Twitter strategy!
Let’ s get one thing straight – a strategy requires high level thinking. A medium is simply a tactic that should support a true strategy. Twitter, my friends, is a tactic, a medium. Plain and simply.
Now, many of the consultants out there will sell you on why you need a “social media strategy.” I agree that you need a plan for how to integrate social media into your business operations. But social media as the strategy itself? What’s the objective behind it…to meet a bunch of cool people and LOL/LMAO/LMFAO our way to the bank? Maybe it is a real and profitable strategy for the smart entrepreneurs, pundits, and consultants who keep dangling shiny new toys and techniques in front of you. For the rest of us, we need to take a chill pill and think for a second.
Strategic Thinking Should Come BEFORE Tactics and Media!
This is a very important point. You work for a business (or run a business in some of your cases). That business has important metrics to meet in order to succeed. Those metrics might be growing revenue, signing up “n” new customers, reducing business expenses, or even “keeping” the loyal and profitable customers or clients with whom you’ve built valuable relationships.
What do these metrics have to do with the subject of this post? Strategy must be derived from important business objectives. It must also be measured against real business metrics to benchmark success. The metrics should be driving the objectives, which in turn should be driving your strategic decisions. Then, and only then, should you turn your attention to go-to-market tactics.
Simple Process To Think More Strategically
- Set your high level objective(s) – Well-crafted objectives should also be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-Bound). A good objective will often start with the word “To”, as in “To build a new channel of 20 resellers in the southeast USA by December 31, 2010″. That’s a darn SMART goal, as well.
- Determine the strategy that will help meet your objective – Cool, so this is where I say “how” I will meet that objective. Is the right answer to “start using social media”? Of course not. There’s no logical connection between the objective and the “strategy” proposed, like that of the underpants gnomes as shown in the image below. The strategy might be to launch a recruitment and qualification program for a very particular type of reseller in the region specified. Notice we haven’t talked about how to execute it yet; just what we are trying to do from a high level to meet the objective.
- Outline the tactics that will help the strategy meet the designated metrics – Now we are ready to talk about tactics and media. Here you can get into specific messaging, targeting approach, and the exact media you intend to employ to make it happen. It should also indicate how you intend to measure each tactic/medium, and how that rolls up to help meet the overall goal as designated in #1 above.
- Underpants Gnomes: “Strategy” for Profitability (courtesy of thinkprocess.org)
Conclusion
Strategic thinking is very important, and a simple objectives/strategy/tactics model should prove very helpful in keeping this all in perspective. Let’s start talking about how to fit social media into our existing businesses and our overall media mix in a truly integrated fashion. This argument is not a new one; I was having conversations like this in the mid-90s!
What do you think? Do you view social media as a strategy? Is that a realistic way to look at it? It’s most certainly not just a “fad”, as I’ve heard many baby boomers refer to it. The Internet was tailor made for this sort of interaction, so that narrow viewpoint is extremely naive.
Will you think about it differently now, or did you already manage to sort all this out for yourself amidst the hype?
Read more posts from Return On Now about Social Media.
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With the lack of a Strategic Vision we often implement Tactical Solutions
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Hi Tommy
Yes apologies for the long post. Got most carried away!
Sheila – you win the award for longest comment ever on Return on Now! Good stuff in there. The word “expert” has really lost its meaning in the wake of the social media upswing. Anyone can now claim to be a guru or expert at something, and the general public has become a bit desensitized to its meaning now. It’s a shame, but it’s the reality.
Steve – Yes yes yes…be smart marketers and make everything else fit into a strategic objective! Benchmarking milestones and measuring progress must absolutely be a piece of this puzzle as well, but if you’re already a good marketer, you should be doing this as a normal course of business.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments!
I agree. Social media is just a tool for marketing. I hate the so called “experts” in the field. How can you be an expert in something that changes every second? It’s all hype. The best we can do is be professional marketers who understand who to use the social media tools to yield results. So, maybe this is a rant, but I needed this forum. Check out my blog, I talk about how social media is not a strategy in multiple entries. Thanks.
Steve
http://www.weltbranding.com/blog/
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Hi Tommy
I really liked your post and I have to agree that having written two posts myself now on my dismay at the ‘emerging’ social media ‘experts’ throwing around their expertise along with their ‘strategies’ to all businesses who will listen, that it’s good to read a perspective that matches mine.
Also, I have seen three people I know who work within my network with a clear career in PR and marketing behind them, suddenly adding social media to their list of services, something else I think needs to be discussed by someone as it’s quite frankly insulting to people who really care and who are passionate about it.
I love the Internet and I love things that are social and based in the UK sold a professional theatre show back in 2006 via Facebook and blogs, so I kind of feel that the ‘band wagon’ jumpers think they know what it’[s about but in truth, they don’t. In my mind, social media isn’t a new concept at all and if I look back I can remember many people who utilised the principles of social media long before it was ever discussed.
I do believe however, that for some at least who are using the word ‘strategy’ are not necessarily saying that it’s a cut and dry method and perhaps the word ‘strategy’ is the only way they can convey what they’re doing.
I do think businesses can leverage social media, but every business is different, every product and person is different and in my mind, no social media ‘expert’ should be judged on their followers – but on the content they produce online for their clients. To this end, if you’re good at what you do, then you will understand that the key business is the bit that defines what you do with anything – whether that’s social media or marketing. This is the bit that seems to be lacking with practically every social media ‘expert’ I’ve come across of late and it’s really beginning to irritate me because it is those people who are treating it as a ‘fad’.
I for one have always said to people before they even look at social media as an option is to consider what they want to achieve – for some people it’s just not relevant to what they want to do and in the true spirit of social media, I feel bound to tell them the truth, rather than take their money and sell them something that’s a waste of time.
Their business objectives should always come first and whether social media is going to assist them achieve that is the part that requires expertise – not merely approaching social media as an entity outside of everything else that can miraculously solve all their problems (which I’ve seen as well).
Interaction with a current objective is where social media belongs in my opinion as I’ve looked at it from many angles including marketing, PR and SEO for example – all with different objectives and requiring different ‘tactics’ or ‘strategies’ to make it work.
So, I’ve had my moan now and again, think that what you’ve written is really good and has my vote!
Oh and if you fancy writing about the ‘experts’ and what you feel defines them I’d be very interested on your thoughts.
I’m humbled by those kind words. (And actually amazed no one went off on me in the process!)
Many thanks for adding your input to the conversation as well Thomas. Please come back and feel free to post your thoughts on any post on the site.
From the headline I thought I was going to disagree. I was getting ready to write an inflaming comment. But… Your words ring true. Very well written Tommy. I also liked your replies to the various comments. You really do know your stuff.
I appreciate your alternative viewpoint Marco. Of course, sometimes you need to invest time and energy in actually understanding the tactic itself before you can begin to use it actively. Clearly, the way you approach a strategy might be influenced by where you anticipate promoting it.
The key is to always be sure to take a topdown approach to your communications and marketing strategy. If you start with the tactic, you leave yourself at risk of rolling out important programs myopically. Unless you insert another checkpoint where you start with the tactic, craft objectives and strategy, and then start mapping out tactics from a “clean slate” (i.e. back out to the objectives and strategy first, knowing a tactic helped stimulate the effort in the first place). Of course, you’d insert said tactic in the process at that point, but this hedges against oversights you’d likely expose yourself to otherwise.
Thanks again for engaging in the conversation,
Tommy
Alternate POV for your consideration.
Sometimes the tactical opportunity is so enormous, it simply cannot be ignored, which in turn defines the strategy to be used, i would not limit the interpretation to one way only.
Strategy drives tactics, or tactical opportunity drives strategy? it depends. I agree with pretty much everything else in your article BTW, thanks for that.
m
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Thanks for your input Kelsi. Yes, there can be whole strategies focused on leveraging Social Media, but at the end of the day, the overarching objective is still high level. That’s where the whole equation seems to break.
Why do you use social media?
What are you hoping to get from it?
How does it fit into your business operations?
Is it even the right thing to do for you?
Obviously, if you are focused on awareness and/or PR, it makes sense to at least be involved at some level. To me, Social Media just offers a list of new tools to do the same thing – get recognition and attention for your business.
If you are a media company, your objective is to get content or multimedia in front of eyeballs. The strategy is to distribute via a list of outlets, and the tactics are the where, how, and when you will do it in each medium.
As you can see, though, the objectives and strategy still take precedence, with social media playing an important role in achieving your goals.
I really appreciate you reading and taking the time to chime in. Please feel free to do so on any future post or conversation on here.
Tommy
I highly agree that people are not sure what they are talking about when it comes to “Social Media Strategy”
You say social media is not a strategy, and I 100% agree BUT there are still “Social Media Strategies” that can be taken from a high level goal.
For Example:
One of our Goals…
Goal: Produce and aggregate quality content for our clients and potential clients
Sample Objectives for that goal…
* Produce 8 episodes (4 per month) of “MyWants TV” by July 31st
* Produce 2 live episodes (1 per month) of “Social Media Wants FAQ’s” and achieve an average viewership of 15 for each episode by July 31st
Sample Strategies for the first objective…
* Select an episode from list of possible episodes for MyWants TV
* Produce and Edit MyWants TV episode
* Distribute episode among online channels
And that list of strategies can be broken down into specific tactics to make those three things happen.
BUT for the point, the strategies are completely focused on having content creating and distributed for the sole purpose of utilizing social media.
When a company is coming in FRESH to social media, they should and MUST look to their original and typical business goals and just simply see where social media can fit in. That should be the second step of creating a social media strategy, right behind determine what you TRUE passion is.
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Thanks ‘Cisco for the comment. It amazes me to see experienced business people and marketers who still don’t know the difference between placing an advertisement in a magazine and rolling up a list of disparate activities into an overall strategy or approach.
I get your point about the strategy of how you are using social media, and I completely agree (it further cements my opinion, actually).
Your strategy is to engage with very targeted types of individuals. You could do it via social media, events, offline networking, or a number of other mediums. The key is that your objective remains the same regardless of how you try execute on achieving your goal.
I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts. Cheers, and I hope to see you at the BATHH event in a couple of weeks.
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Excellent distinction between strategy and tactic, Tommy! That’s one of the fundamental lessons I learned in my studies having a minor in business management and a major in Public Relations. It’s important to have a clear path of what you want to do before you decide how you want to do it.
If I had to choose something in the post with which I could argue, it would be the idea that there in fact could be a strategy to the way one networks or uses social networking. For example, if I’m utilizing a number of lists to gain the attention of a certain group of people, I would think I would need to devise a strategy in grabbing and keeping their attention. The tactic is indeed the medium, but how I decide to continue the conversation going for an actual benefit to all parties could be considered a strategy…
But what I especially agree with in this post and what also sums it up nicely is:
“Strategy must be derived from important business objectives. It must also be measured against real business metrics to benchmark success. The metrics should be driving the objectives, which in turn should be driving your strategic decisions. Then, and only then, should you turn your attention to go-to-market tactics.”
Well done, sir!
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