“It’s the buzz; We have to jump onto the bandwagon; All my friends are in it; Our competitors have this brilliant Facebook page; It’s free advertising …”
These are some of the most recurrent reasons why we professionals are called to the rescue of many a decent-sized company eager not to be left behind and ready to implement some kind of half-concocted social media strategy in record time – which usually entails having a modicum of a presence in the social networks to begin with.
Happy as we are to be of assistance, the reasons above denote a lack of understanding of the new realities the company or organization will be facing as it joins the social side of the Web 2.0 that should set our alarm bells ringing. ‘We want to join the social networks to have a better communication channel with our workers, customers and the community’ or ‘We want to be able to offer information of true value to my customers’ are reasons I have never come across in pre-sales meetings. Little surprise if events take a disheartening but expected course after a while.
Time and again I have seen the same story unfold. The pros are called in; the strategy is implemented; all the IT applications and the web design & development phase is completed; the company builds up a budding presence in the social networks … and then, after a few months, interest dwindles, enthusiasm wanes and no one is able to name any tangible benefits in return for the time and the effort invested in the first place!
I want to argue here that we professionals are often to blame. The single, most damaging mistake that internet consultants of every guise make when implementing any social media plan is this: lack of previous adequate training beyond the technical side of the initiative.
As Jennifer Korell noted in a recent article worth reading in full, the social media means that “dialogue has replaced monologue and narrowcasting is replacing broadcasting online.” And yet companies are still operating under the old marketing and PR tenet of “remaining on message” and using the novel social platforms as just another means of monologuing and broadcasting. Unsurprisingly customers (and even staff) fail to be persuaded and tune out once the novelty wears off.
This sad state of affairs is to be expected unless we expose our clients to ‘the new rules of marketing and PR’ (to use David Meerman Scott’s felicitous phrase). Any project undertaken without previous training in the new philosophies of transparency, optimized content generation, soft and viral marketing, online democracy, etc. is doomed to failure – no matter how slick or glossy the application or network in question. The shift in perception needs to predate the actual implementation phase and must engage all the parties directly and indirectly involved.
I am a strong advocate that, whenever possible, training should reach the whole company in one way or another. Engaging outside stakeholders is a risky enterprise unless enough critical mass has been reached at home. We want employees of every department to understand what increased transparency is going to mean to their everyday working lives, we want them to become evangelists for their company in the social networks, we want them to generate enthusiasm and exchange ideas and even constructive criticism via blog comments and other means beyond the official line. And we want everyone to be of one mind when it comes to editorial and content generation policies.
My advice to my fellows and my clients is straightforward: never implement a company-wide social media policy without securing as much as this is practicable company-wide training in the philosophies that are being embraced. Training should come at the start of the project, and be particularly thorough for anyone remotely involved in the key areas of communication, marketing and PR.
It has been stated hundreds of times and it bears repeating: a Social Media Plan is not an IT issue. It is a company-wide issue where the involvement and the sharing of values by all according to established guidelines will be of true and lasting benefit.
I look forward to hearing your experiences with social media plans, social media implementation and training in the comments section.
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Very often small and not-so-small businesses and organizations make the mistake of approaching web design & development agencies to ‘sort out’ their online presence. This is a recurrent error that, as I will illustrate later, even ‘should-know-better’ public and local authorities are not immune to. Employing a web designer in this fashion is tantamount to charging a bricklayer with the task of building our house without the previous intervention of an architect. The fact is that most web designers (though by no means all) are woefully unprepared when it comes to fundamental factors for the success of even relatively small 2.0 internet projects.
The factors I am referring to here include SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing), web analytics, monitorization and social media integration/social media marketing – let alone digital content generation (for content is king, as they say), online reputation management and digital PR.
Think of the web designers of renown in your city or region. I bet the prime criterion they are judged by and the strength upon which their current success rests is their ability to produce eye-catching and technically sound webpages – usually loosely following the dictates of their patrons, though usually with much professional autonomy and artistic license. And much too often that is enough to carry the day for them
I should know. Not long ago I was part of an agency pitch team for a local authority that was about to invest €55,000 on a ‘webpage’ in order to promote their city as a tourist destination of choice. “We want a website with such and such colour and with little text”, was the councillor’s opening line before either myself or any of my colleagues - which incidentally included one of Europe’s web analytics gurus – could even begin to explain the crucial importance of any of the elements I have just mentioned for the real success of the project (to promote that city as a tourist resort, and certainly not to merely please the councillor’s aesthetic sensibilities, one hopes!).
To no avail. Result: this local authority ended up with the colourful and minimalist website they wanted by a creative agency, to be sure. And yet regrettably a website with no social media widgets, flawed from the point of view of SEO and hence difficult to find in the search engines, bereft of any interactive elements and as such unable to galvanize public enthusiasm through the social networks. Unsurprisingly their city did not achieve their unstated goals through the online medium and it is losing out today as a result.
We are increasingly witnessing the rise of a new wave of agencies that I would describe as collaborative enterprises where the importance of all the links in the chain of 2.0 success – programmers, SEO and SEM copies, web designers, analytics experts, digital content editors, online monitoring and reputation managers and others - work together under the overall guidance of an online strategist or an online strategy team that acts as both the ’architect’ of the project and also the ’conductor’ that ensures everyone plays together in precise rhythmic coordination and to the same tempo.
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What is the role of online strategists and what must be their qualifications?
In most general terms, the online strategist’s job is three-fold:
- to create the blueprints of the project, having previously established a clearly defined set of achievable goals together with the client.
- to find the most compelling way to coordinate the multifarious technical, artistic, content and marketing teams in order to accomplish those goals in the quickest and most cost-effective manner.
- to be the much-needed liaison between the client and the aforementioned teams and act as his first port of call (beyond the traditional account management sense).
Just as an orchestra conductor does not necessarily play every single instrument, online strategists are not experts in every single aspect of the Web 2.0. It seems to me, however, that the following are essential if they are to perform to a high standard:
- Basic technical competence and a thorough understanding of the role of all the various integrating elements – like SEO, SEM, etc. – and crucially the fair value of their contribution in monetary terms.
- A nose for online publicity and PR. At the end of the day a webpage or an online presence is always about selling something.
- Good managerial and ‘people’ skills – they must refuse to give in to ‘prima donnas’ in their teams and emphasize the importance of collaboration and team-play.
- Excellent client-facing and communication/training skills, since it will be their responsibility to deliver the finished product to the client and an element of ‘post-delivery’ training will be consistently involved.
If coordinating multifarious technical, artistic and marketing professionals within an agency is difficult, coordinating independent external providers working for the benefit of a single project can easily turn nightmarish for a client who is not truly well versed in internet matters. And this recurrently translates into significant amounts of wasted time, money and effort.
This is why we online strategists are often hired as overall coordinators of the various outsourced agencies with the responsibility of bringing order to chaos and ensuring the client is not overcharged. Hardly a dream scenario – the dream scenario would be an integrated, diversified and coordinated agency as I have argued - but one that makes much more sense than leaving the end client to fend for himself amongst professionals who don’t often speak the same language and then expect him to sell the results internally.
Finally, while good online strategists must be - as Diana den Held has indicated – fully in synch with the client, they should also be thick-skinned enough to challenge the latter by opening up new possibilities to promote her end product or service through a combination of the best technical, artistic and marketing mix. Pretending that a client is going to approach us with a ‘perfect plan’ is tantamount to expecting a layperson to give an architect the finished blueprint of their dream house.
In the end, our role as online strategists is to capitalize on our clients’ enthusiasm, guide them and show them the best way forward: we strive to be regarded as trusted advisors with a ‘can-do’ attitude who can exceed their expectations by combining the best human talent available to us with the most successful and proven online business practices.
I look forward to hearing your views on online strategists, their role and your experiences with them in the comments section.
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