The Jeff Pulver Blog: What is YOUR Social Media Strategy?

« Watch pulverTV LIVE Today at 2PM EDT / 11 AM PDT / 20:00 CET | Main | Jerusalem ROCKS: Venue moved to Sultan’s Pool »

September 04, 2007

What is YOUR Social Media Strategy?

While Social Media wasn’t invented in 2007, by the end of this year, many companies both small and large around the world should be thinking about what their social media strategy is. While some companies will have a strategy in place, many won’t and those companies are at risk for being disrupted by an emerging medium if they take a pass and not engage their companies at this time. What companies are starting to learn about their business and their interaction with customers is with the advent of social media they need to consider taking a “bottom up” approach to their business in addition to the traditional “top down” methods they currently follow.

A company’s Facebook strategy is just a piece of the answer. It is not the complete answer. At best it is a tactic. And a company’s social media strategy isn’t something which can be entirely outsourced either. When implemented it requires a commitment from the company to support the efforts, not to just press play and walk away and hope for the best.

While I have actively used the term “community” since 1994, and hired a friend in 1999 and gave him a title of “Community Developer” it has taken a number of years for the world to catch on to some concepts I have been taking for granted for years.

It turns out when you decided to put your company “on the Internet”, like it or not, it would be a lifetime commitment to being subject to ongoing change and innovation. What at first was creating a gateway for company email and a website to establish an Internet presence has evolved into being able to leverage the best tools whenever possible when playing in an always-on world of pervasive broadband.

In the future, corporate executives will know the answer to the “What is your Social Media Strategy?” question. I look forward to watching Social Media continuing to evolve and transform the way companies interact with employees, customers, business partners and their entire underlying business ecosystem. “Social Media” – It ain’t just for kids anymore.

---

Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Community, Jeff Pulver

Share this post:

Posted by jeff on September 4, 2007 05:30 AM | Permalink

Additional resources: Watch PrimeTime TV Shows | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos

Comments

Good points, Jeff. This really requires companies to have in-depth understanding of their communities, and what it takes to provide value for them.

Thus a company/organization's social media strategy needs to be following the community, and serving it with great value online. Wherever that is. Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc.

Posted by: Geoff Livingston at September 6, 2007 02:42 PM

thank you

Posted by: sohbet at September 6, 2007 07:34 AM

We learned from the late 1990's what not to do with community forums and what we should do, namely begin developing both a news and social environment where each post, each message, each contribution, becomes a part of a living journal that will live on forever.

In a sense, each community forum member at www.ipiu.org/forums publishes their own biography, their own opinions, their own talents, all under their real first and last name, and real location, within some of the most strongest forum rules, code of ethics, and oaths on the internet.

Where will this lead us? After nearly a half-million posts, I am no longer sure. But I thank you for seeing what we have seen starting ten years ago.

Tech Support - USA
Private Investigators Forums
Sponsored by:
The International Private Investigators Union (IPIU)
Founded in 1989

Posted by: Tech Support - Private Investigators Community Forums at September 5, 2007 02:34 PM

How can a company not afford to listen to & engage their customers? Ignore them & they will go away... to your competitors. Listen to them & engage them & they will tell others.

Posted by: Connie Bensen at September 4, 2007 10:52 PM

In 1994 I left the traditional entertainment industry to join a Video Game company. As Marketing Director I had to fight tooth and nail to get them to see the light and authorize a full-time employee as "webmaster" to use our website to communicate with customers, share information and engage in support discussions -- all sources of invaluable marketing, brand legitimacy and credibility, and market intelligence to make our products (and our selling process) better. Social Media is the same thing on Steroids. But now, just a single "webmaster" or "Community Developer" may not be enough. With all the access points and the far reaching tentacles of blogs, social networks, micro-blogging services, etc., for the Internet business of today, perhaps Social Media needs to be not just a strategy, but also a part of the corporate culture, where every employee, from bottom to top, is encouraged to partake and participate as they see fit. And every employee understands and believes their company's mission well enough to be a sincere and credible (and appropriate) evangelist on their own, however they see fit to contribute.

Posted by: Jeffrey Sass at September 4, 2007 03:00 PM

my social media strategy is to follow my passion and com-passion- all ther rest is a distraction - geo (at) ExercisingJudgement.com

Posted by: geo at September 4, 2007 02:49 PM

The buzz I hear from my competitors is how to profit from Social Media. I have no desire to work with a hidden agenda. In social media, I look for entertainment and news. I have not been disappointed by those I follow on Twitter. (I have not made an effort to get more involved in Facebook). The Twitters I follow are a diverse bunch and all very talented. My updates on Twitter are my own daily distractions. Mostly, I watch and listen. However, if someone should need something that I can help with, I'll be there out of appreciation for the bits of wisdom I have received.

With that said, I see the future of this media being devoured by corporate attorneys drawing up confidentiality agreements to employees and associates. Every corporations will be handing out choke collars & muzzles.

Let's see how it goes.

Posted by: Adnohr Yak at September 4, 2007 02:32 PM

This Comment was sponsored by the "Diet Coke" I just drank and the Porn by "Vivid" I was just watching:

Corporate Socialism scares me more then National Socialism... the fact that your trying to convince the powers that be to use a powerful communication tool is even more scary. Let the companies be silent for once... I'm expressing myself damn it!

sorry I'm not going to be able to watch your show @ 2pm and heckle you... but I'm getting my wisdom tooth pulled...

Noah's Teeth being Extracted is brought to you by the female dentist who might get offended by Noah when he goes on laughing gas.

Posted by: Noah David Simon at September 4, 2007 02:03 PM

As far as Facebook and other mass online social networking sites I'm still in a "kick the tires" experimental stage. I encourage my team and especially my marketing director to experiement and use Facebook.

As far as blogging goes that is a major strategy of my company as we provide tools and support for business blogging and I give regular talks on RSS to local networking groups.

I use Twitter to broadcast blog updates, connect with like minded people and to send out what I like to call, personal press releases.

Of course the biggest and I feel the most important "social networking" strategy is to network face to face via local business networks, civil meeting and just meeting others for common interest. Of course if I can use online tools to enhance this I will and will use online tools to find out about real life situations locally.

Posted by: Patrick at September 4, 2007 01:00 PM

While I think it's right to think about a social media strategy, it's necessary to first understand what social media IS by diving in and participating. I think execs and public relations types in corporations need to experience first-hand what things like Facebook and Twitter are like and what can be done. Otherwise, they will attempt to map it to something they already know, and probably misstep.
Jeff's point about bottom-up vs. traditional top-down cannot be overstated. Too often, top management is afflicted by what I call "dementia presidentia". People at the top actually begin to think the world is like they say it is in their command memos to underlings, who rarely will disagree. The social networks are putting consumers in charge, and the successful corporation of the future will spend a lot less on marketing flak, and other outward-only oriented material, and a lot more on actually responding to their customers. At least we can hope so!

Posted by: Joe Cascio at September 4, 2007 12:59 PM

your scaring me. The community like tyranny of round table board room talks are hypocritical already. Do you really think a politically correct corporate blog would listen and not censor a guy like me? I have found the contrary... The question is not if corporations will use blogs... (of course they will eventually!). It is a good way to identify any nationalism and self interest they wish to control... the question is if individuals well rise up against them and run their own blogs to discredit these blogs. If I didn't know you Jeff as a guy that I could trust... I wouldn't comment here for fear of censorship that I experience on other blog sites.

Posted by: Noah David Simon at September 4, 2007 11:34 AM

funny - woke up with this topic on the brain (rather than just - tell staff and artists about new ideas and see what they do) and in my twitter log was this great post.. then an email a new friend who found me on Flickr - as a company who tries to answer this question for independent musicians it is great to remember to have a strategy ourselves

Posted by: Ariel Hyatt at September 4, 2007 10:35 AM

My strategy is to somehow, someway, get corporations to treat what you just said as gospel. This isn't about sitting around watching market fluctuations and reading spreadsheets. It's about particpating in the way the world, as you say, works now.

So my first operational tactic in this strategy: "Class: repeat after me: Participate, participate, participate. Share, share, share. Share what? Yourself, yourself, yourself."

Posted by: Grayson at September 4, 2007 09:44 AM

I'm very conscious that social media mirrors real life, and that this has some awkward implications for both companies and individuals. So, one of my social strategies is to work for genuine equality of opportunity and against bias and bigotry - should that also then be my social media strategy? How does that work with the "walled garden" approach of Facebook, and LinkedIn, which both seem to tap into and exploit several kinds of bias that progressive societies find politically unacceptable in the modern world? From inside that garden, what's the problem? From the outside, what's the solution?

Walls don't work for any length of time, and inequalities will always self-correct, but I think this is an uneasy proposition for a lot of people, especially business people who like "certainties". So, many business consultants offer illusory certainties to pay their mortgages, but this is based on a false sense of security.

Feeling good about your position on the beach isn't going to stop that big tide coming in, as a certain Mr Canute learned to his cost.

Posted by: Dean Whitbread at September 4, 2007 09:26 AM

I absolutely agree, it will be necessary. As a consumer, I'm not simply looking for the catalog and contact info...I want more. RSS, Company Blogs, etc.

As an aspiring business owner still in development, I understand that all of my memberships today is where the future is headed.

Posted by: NEENZ: "INFINITYPRO" at September 4, 2007 07:53 AM

I agree completely that companies need to start looking for the answer to this question. I had asked this of the VP I report to as well as the marketing group of the company and I got blank stares from everyone. They have not come to the understanding that 'social media' is not just for kids that are on myspace and that building a community of their employees and customers is the new evolution of business in this age. Thanks for bringing this into a spotlight.

Posted by: Koka Sexton at September 4, 2007 07:48 AM