Social Media Strategy

First the good news - Gartner says by 2010 more than 60 percent of Fortune 1000 companies with a web site will connect to or host a form of online community that can be utilized for customer relationship purposes. 

Now the bad news (Not surprising however) - Gartner predicts that by 2010, more than 50 percent of companies that have established an online community will fail to establish mutual purpose, ultimately eroding customer and company values.

It is not difficult to predict the failure seeing the way some companies’ adopt social media - “Set it and forget it” approach. The reason behind Social Media failure is because many businesses dive in due to the buzz created by a recently successful campaign or because it’s trendy to do so with little thought for the ongoing management and goals necessary for such a strategy.

Social media should be approached as an ongoing marketing activity that doesn’t start or stop with a product launch or a new logo. To attain success in Social Media, it is necessary to have a social media strategy. It is extremely important to understand and clearly define your objectives and the audience you are trying to target. Only then one can implement and measure the results.

Also, social media marketing and traditional forms of marketing require different skill sets and strategies. What then are the skill sets and strategies for this new media?

The answer is - there are No common strategies.

As with any powerful medium, adoption has to be carefully planned and implemented. Industry–specific strategies have to be developed after careful analysis of company’s goals, objectives and target market, so that a unique social-media marketing plan can be created.

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