I’ve been speaking to a few clients over the last month about a social media strategy. They are all pretty much telling me the same thing:

“I’ve been dabbling in social media for a while, but want to do it properly now”

Far too often a professional practice decides that it can’t ignore social media for ever and so sends either it’s marketing person off or a partner interested in social media to a social media workshop. In this workshop they are introduced to what social media is or isn’t and introduced to the tools available. So they come back from their workshop with a new twitter account and a brushed up LinkedIn profile…. and…. that’s where it sort of peters out. The problem is with this approach is there is limited thought (and therefore, the crucial buy-in across the firm’s key decision makers) to the ‘why’ are we doing social media and ‘how’ will we use it to win MORE business from new and existing clients.

If the ‘why’, ‘who’ and the ‘how’ are not properly understood, then the relevant infrastructure is not normally in place to make social media work well. Consequently, a firm’s social media efforts start off with the best intentions and then generally fizzles out; or the poor person in marketing, lumbered with the task of doing social media for the firm, sends out the firm’s press releases on social media, and says thank you for any Retweet or mention of the firm. (Hardly engaging or thrilling stuff is it?)

A social media strategy includes the ‘how’, ‘why’, ‘who’ and ‘what’ bit for a firm’s social media activity. It is an important piece of the jigsaw puzzle in any firm’s marketing strategy and dictates what should go in the firm’s social media policy.