Social
media doesn’t come with directions. Instead it is a never ending
process of learning what, where, when, who, how and why you
individually and your entire organization should use it purposely.
Social media doesn’t come with a manual and it isn’t something you should learn by simply copying others. Social
media is simply a new communications system and instead of thinking
about social media people should think about how communications has
changed as a result of social media.
What Has Changed?
In the past communications was a one way marketing system aimed at
getting people’s attention. The old system “pushed” out messages and
offers and the consumer had one decision, respond or not. Social media
now makes communications a two way exchange and people have been
enabled to connect and collaborate with others who have similar
experiences or opinions about anything, everything, anyone and everyone.
Consumer feedback is now instantaneous and rather than one by one it
is crowds of people who desire to be heard. The subject matters
threaded throughout all these interconnected conversations is all
relevant and relative to any business, institution, celebrity,
government, product or service and people’s daily experiences with
anything and everything. The market intelligence embedded in these
conversations is strategically significant to those who know how to
listen and take action accordingly.
What Direction Should Your Organization Follow?
The direction of any business is set by leadership. Most leaders
engage in strategic thinking before finalizing an organizations plan or
direction. Strategic thinking encompasses assessing relevant issues
that impact an organizations ability to deliver value propositions to
specific markets better than the competition. Once a strategy is
concluded then it all about execution of related initiatives and
activities. Execution involves people, processes, technology and last
but not least communications. Without effective communications the cost
of execution rises which then creates the need for new “directions”.
Changing directions adds complexity. Complexity increases cost. When
communications fail an organizations cannot progress towards its
strategic aim efficiently.
Social Media Can Cause A Change In Your Directions
If
you don’t have good market intelligence than any effort to propagate
your value proposition to specific markets may be a wasted effort.
Market intelligence is about knowing what value your markets seeks.
Where your market is, who is your market, when your market engages, how
do they engage and why. Knowing what, where,who,when, how and why is
relevant and relative to monitoring market sentiment and subsequently
focusing your message around the markets of conversations. However, if
your organizational design, culture, knowledge and communications is
not in alignment with the markets conversation then the market is not
likely to respond. A market that doesn’t respond is a market that is
likely responding to someone or something else.
Even if you have the best market intelligence you cannot effectively respond without having an organizations that:
- Cares to respond
- Knows how to respond
- Believes in your response
- Is capable of responding
- Enabled to deliver actions that satisfy your market
Without enabling your organization,(people, processes and
technology), to properly and effectively respond you are doomed to fail
because 1-5 above is what all markets want from the supplier.
Social media magnifies an organizations capabilities. The market of
conversations are quick to point out companies that fail to meet the
criteria of 1-5 above. Being able to meet this criteria is a function
of organizational design, culture, management and communications.
Social media cannot fix these issues rather all it does in magnify how
well they perform. Not being able to perform to the expectations of the
market has never been as transparent as it is today. To maximize the
power of social media companies must first assess organizational
design, culture, management and communications or face the consequences
of ignoring that which has become transparent to the market of
conversations. The directions needed to fix these issues is different than marketing and PR. Get it?
What say you?