Comments on: Why I Worry About "Social Media Strategy"

By: Alison

Alison — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:43:04 +0000

Thanks, Dave. Great answers. I keep thinking of blogs, video, podcasts, etc as more assets at our disposal - but it’s hard to explain that to people who are timid about social media in general.

By: Dave Fleet

Dave Fleet — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:05:22 +0000

Ryan - Absolutely. These new approaches do cause disruption and organizations shouldn’t rush to use them without thinking. My concern is that people are viewing the tactics as a strategy. While a wider plan for engaging in these conversations is necessary, the tactical thinking for each initiative can’t happen in isolation. For individual tactics their case-by-case use needs to be considered alongside all the other ‘traditional’ tactics.

Alison - Great question! I think that’s part of the problem. People shouldn’t look for a ‘YouTube strategy’ - they should look for how YouTube fits into their plan for that initiative. Part of that is ongoing education but communicators can help by integrating these tactics into their communications plans.

Ok, you hypothetically think a YouTube video is appropriate within this initiative - explain why. Explain that your news release will link to the video and that you will reach out to the thought leaders in the space (who you’re already engaging with, right?). Explain that this will drive traffic to your website. Explain that the video will direct people to a custom landing page that provides them with directly relevant content so that 75% of them don’t just leave your site immediately after arriving. Explain that you can track what these people do on your site and that you can measure how successful their visits are. Explain how these new tactics fit into the bigger picture.

Does that make sense?

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:01:07 +0000

Here’s a question: What do you do when strategy gets used as the latest excuse for not getting things done with social media? You pitch a viral video idea, but it gets shot down because “We don’t have a YouTube strategy.” You pitch a simple idea for a Facebook group and get told we can’t do it because “We don’t have a Facebook strategy.” Well, we don’t have a white paper strategy either but that’s never kept us from writing dozens and dozens of white papers per year …

By: Ryan Anderson

Ryan Anderson — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:39:52 +0000

I completely agree that social media needs to be treated as part of the existing mix. The thing that people often forget is that social media is plural… it’s not one mystical thing. It’s a collection of media that have a social element in common.

That said, I do think strategy is important to consider before becoming active in social media, because they really do require a certain amount of disruption within most marketing organizations. Like you say, on their own, tactics like twitter or Facebook can make a small ripple, but even as part of an overall strategy, companies need to figure out what they’re trying to get out of the individual media, and how you’re going to do it.