4 Things Companies Should Do To Really Prepare for Social Media

Their are many consultants and social media experts telling companies about the significance of blogs, the wonder of Qik, and how Dell is using Twitter to sell computers. But if your goal is to get your marcom team ready to integrate social media-related programs and ideas into your marketing plans, then the real question is how can you move them from an operational mindset and culture to one that is prepared for a constant state of change.

Most companies' marketing and communications teams are trying to sell as efficiently as possible such that the ROI of all marcom expenditures is clear. That puts you at odds with the other pressure in the marketplace: change. Sure, the effectiveness of TV hasn't dropped through the floor (yet) nor has getting a good story in the New York Times. But the trends are clear. Word of mouth driven by social media is rising quickly as the source for purchase decision. How can you push against an operational culture to make enough room for change-readiness? 

Prepare your marcom teams to operate in a constant state of change
Social media is a vast collection of behaviors, technology and emergent cultural phenomena. It will constantly be changing - Twitter and FriendFeed are on the edge today while social networks continue to fill up with regular folks (non-tech geeks) discovering the benefits of a social web experience. We talk with many clients who want to get sharp about social media and word of mouth. They come to us to learn more than the basics but discover how they can practically apply these innovations to their business. What we do for oursleves and what we offer many of them is an approach that prepares them not just for today's next, new thing but the neverending flood of next new things to come.

1. Invite lots of outsiders to visit your organization to spread new ideas
There are a lot of intersting smart people out there. Some of them are your customers, but that's another post. If you choose wisely you can get the best minds and idea-sharing experiences without wasting everyone's precious time. We have had a lot of great folks through our doors over the past few weeks from places like Eons.com, Inspire.com, 33 Across, the various campaigns. Today, our good friend Owen Mack - digital video specialist is coming in to share with our Moving Media team. 

2. Commit to trying new things all the time in your personal/professional life
Find 5% of your week to explore something new. It could be grabbing a new set of RSS feeds (RSS Readers are far from dead despite what the bleeding edge geeks might say), it could be walking into an interesting retailer doing something different like Umpqua Banks or Starwood's ALoft properties. Create a family Flip book on Flip.com. Post a product review for a product you really care about. The key here is to do something not just read about it.

A related point: you cannot outsource many social media programs especially in execution. For one thing, your marcom team needs to roll up their sleeves and blog or twitter or use del.icio.us or whatever, themselves to truly "get" the simplicity and social nature of what is going on. We do a ton of training for clients and staff from C-suite to marketing and comms teams. The light bulb goes off when they are actually touching the buttons themselves. 

3. Operationalize pilots, trials and proofs of concept
Find 10%, 5% or even 2% of a budget to fund pilots with measureable outcomes. Face it, many of us work in big companies that favor the measureble and defensible position. Free form experimentation with no rules or expectations is just not in the cards. Still, there is a lot you can do when restricted by budget and the caveat that the outcome be measureable and reportable. Find $50k and do a partnership with BlogHer. Hire a freelancer to come in and set up your group's Facebook page for recruiting purposes. Here's a novel idea - instead of relying on your media planning and buying company to carve out an experiment or two from a budget, take it upon yourself to manage that budget or request and go use a few dollars to partner with a group doing credible work in this new space (yes, of course, I mean us but choose whomever makes sense to you).

No pilot is too small to measure. Have a reporting model in place before you go too far down the road. Obviously I am advocating group learning from this experiementation, but anyway you can prove scaleability will help you later on. Sometimes, though, you just have to leap forward and trust that the "proof" will come. 

4. Create an award for the best failure. (This was also part of a neat article from Leigh Buchanan in Inc. on How The Creative Stay Creative) I mean, no one wants to incent failure. the goal is to celebrate it a little as the natural best way to learn and give culutral permission to try and either succeed or fail.

We love change. I thought it was because we had some form of acquired ADHD. It's not that. We have actually trained ourselves to thrive in a time of constant change. So we like it cause that  is our planet's natural atmosphere. 

Comments

[Tom O'Brien]

John:

Nice article - I'm going to be sharing with a number of our clients and prospects.

Thanks -

TO'B

[Marie Young]

Hi John,

A realy good post, we're finding in New Zealand that companies have yet to embrace social media. A few early adopters however the rest are not yet convinced perhaps waiting for others to jump in first?

It's an exciting time though so thank you again for sharing your thoughts.

[Richard Millington]

Good article. Social media consultants are tricky. Their goal should be to design a social media effort and then foster that open, communicating, spirit amongst a company's employees.