Will your Social Media strategy work?

Social Business is all about strategy, the strategy you put together on paper may look great but will it actually work and provide the traction and the desired return on investment?

The answer is simple, but the underlying complexities are the real challenges.

Simply put you need three key ingredients:

Looking at the above graphic you will notice it is all about the brand, but not just the brand of the company. Individual brands play a major role in the success of your strategy as they provide fresh content, thought leadership and real relationships that are engaging and meaningful.

Oh and never ignore any person in your organisation, only 15% of any profession are actually on the correct career path. So if you assume that engineers are not good at communication and only leaving it to the people with the communication degrees could have disastrous results in the long term.

I have encountered delivery drivers with better written communication skills and larger networks than most of the so called marketing and communication professionals.

You see the new social business is not about title or qualification, it is about influence and continuous communication and thought leadership will cause that influence to grow.

When it comes to the brand of the company, a strong brand identity helps but everything needs to be in balance, if that brand is not communicated and focused on the human capital within the company you may need to adjust your focus, as the best ambassadors for your brand are the brands that are employed within the company.

All of the above sounds great and is achievable except for one crucial third leg to this tripod - the C-suite (the c-suite is the CEO, CFO, CMO, COO and all that grouping of senior executives) or executive buy in. Without the buy-in of the most senior people within the organization it is just a game that you are playing! You are wasting time and resources.

NO ... get everyone involved, allow everyone to play. Remember only 15% of the organization is likely to be interested in really playing in the long term so allow them the freedom to adopt when they want to and get as many people involved as possible, regardless of which department they come from - that way you will find the champions that will make your strategy a success.

Give them rules and the correct governance to play with and they will play nicely.