Just Stop Talking For A Sec, K?

A social media program that includes one or two people in one department talking about one element of a business isn't a social media strategy. That's called a test. Or a pilot. And, quite frankly, you will be doing yourself a grand disservice by calling your fancy new Facebook/Twitter double-trouble dance a "strategy" for another very simple reason: the greatest opportunity within social media is to bring scale to your brand. You can't scale a person or two. Limiting social media efforts to a person or even a single department is just marketing. It's just talk. Talk talk talk talk... And I'm suggesting we need to just stop talking for a sec, K?

No. Really. Stop.

OK. Thanks. Phew.

Now, on the other hand, if you decided to launch your social media pilot in a product development division to listen to what consumers were saying about your products, now that'd be interesting. Not a scaled system but interesting nevertheless. As I wrote about last week, growing Big Ears is the key to being a good steward of the social web.

Interesting too would be launch to your pilot in customer service where each outgoing post or tweet may not only solve one person's problem but, by making that solution public, may solve many other like-problems instantaneously. Yup, that's almost sorta like being scalable. At least it's one-to-many. (Best Buy's Twelpforce is all about this, right?)

What if your first leap into social media wasn't external at all but used to bring your own people together? What if you used networks for internal teams to collaborate around solving client problems? What if HR was the first to launch an internal employee Facebook group centered around various company volunteer or community programs? At least then you'd get everyone comfortable using the tools, finding their "social voice" (read: non-marketing-speak), and sparking new connections.

I think what I'm saying is what if marketing wasn't the first to pilot these programs? Imagine for a moment that you kicked off that internal program with HR, then when people are comfortable and nimble with the tools and communications style (and networked!), you launch that product development initiative to listen to the marketplace. Once that team is beginning to mine the market for intelligence that can be transformed into incremental product improvements, you fire up that customer service team. What if then and only then you decide, "You know what? I've got myself an organization with many people engaged, listening, and participating, each connected to hundreds of people who are connected to hundreds of people. I think it's time to market this bad boy!" (By the way, do the math on that organization connected to 100s connected to 100s. You think a single person inside marketing can get that done? Nope.)

I understand this isn't the way most people are thinking about or funding their social media efforts. I would simply like to challenge you to consider that there are many, less exposed ways to garner incredible gains from social media outside of marketing. The only way to gain scale is by broad participation with teams who understand what role they play in the social ecosystem. Some listen. Some publish. Some talk.

I was about to say "it takes a village."

Crap. I did say it.

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Andrew Eklund :: Founder & CEO
Ciceron :: Digital Marketing
www.ciceron.com
612.230.3901 :: LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreweklund

Twitter: @aeklund