This is part of the ““Creating Social Media Value”. ” Series.
We’ve covered Management & Administration, Listening & Learning and Part 3 is “Thinking & Planning.”
The objective of this part is to take what you’ve heard and learned
and apply critical thinking in terms of what you should do with the use
of social technology. Should do needs to be framed with an intent which
will be reflected by your actions, words, presence and ongoing
engagement with your market.
Telligent suggest there are 7 P’s to think about and plan for. These include purpose, people, places,process, platform, practices and participate.
Each of these seven thinking elements needs to be thought out, defined,
understood and communicated to your entire organization before you
begin to engage. To do anything less is to insure doing the wrong
things and doing them wrong.
What Does It Mean To Think & Plan?
Thinking allows us to model our intent and to deal with it according
to objectives, plans, ends and desires. The world of on line
conversations, communities and connections requires us to think through
what we’ve learned in parts 1 &2 then apply the knowledge gained to
our intents. As discusses previously the problem is that most
organizations think that the web is a place to seek and find
opportunities to serve their own self interest. If on the other hand we
seek to find and fill the interest of others something super natural
happens….the market will respond to our intent to serve..
Planning to serve is the critical factor that has to be woven into
everything you do on-line and off-line. An intent to serve draws human
nature to the communications which reflect that intent. You see the reality is that we have to unlearn everything we’ve learned about markets, relations and creation of results. If you plan includes chasing,
forcing and “pushing” for results the intent will be transparent and
not considered relational, social or worthy efforts that create value.
Value is created from intent. Intent is reflected in behavior and
communications. Today your intent is transparent and when it creates a
negative experience the world is listening and learning from others.
On-line and off-line success comes from serving the interest of
others. In part 2 you will seen plenty of opportunity to serve if you
are listening and learning correctly. Part 1 will enable to create a
presence in the marketplace waiting to be served. Thinking and planning
should be focused on assessing the attributes of your organization, the
value of your products and services and your market relations all in
context to creating a sentiment of service and fulling that sentiment
beyond expectation. Thinking and planning starts and ends with your
intent.
How To Think & Plan?
If we think about leveraging this thing called “social” and do so in context with what we think we know we will not learn what we need to know.
Part 2 is a precursor to thinking and planning by learning what we
don’t know but need to know. Only then can we think differently and
plan with a new aim, to serve.
Thinking and planning effectively ultimately means things need to
change. What will need to change first is how we think about markets,
relations, business models and service. The technology is the easy part. The thinking and planning is the hard part while at the same time the most important part.
What do you think?