when i was in i.t. (and even now) i was fielding technical support questions for friends and family. now that my day job has changed, the questions have changed a little. people now ask me about the social media. the most common question i get asked goes along these lines: “i’ve heard about this social media, should i start a blog, start twittering or create a facebook page?”

they generally want a nice short answer which i can’t give them. i want to take some time to answer the question here.

the single most important question i want them to answer is “why?”

• why do they want to engage in social media?
• do they view it as a medium to drive revenue?
• is it because someone told them they should?
• is it because everyone is doing it?

“why?” is a question that had to be answered on every project i’ve ever worked on and particularly in business it should always be a question that is asked.

i have never been able to justify an infrastructure upgrade, software development or deployment to the cio/cto with “we just should”. i need to know why and what benefit or return i hope to achieve and be able to articulate it in a business case.

once you answer the “why?” then we can start talking about the “what?“:

• what should we do?
• what tools should we use?
• what are the success metrics?

treat a social media project as you would any project. you are spending your company’s (or your own) money for an expected benefit. now what you do need to be careful about is, like other business projects it may be difficult to prove the r.o.i. as a tangible on your balance sheet. in that respect, you may liken a social media project to be like a c.r.m. project. nobody disputes that having good customer satisfaction is essential to a successful business, but it’s difficult to use customer satisfaction in a business case.

to work out the why’s you might want to think in terms of who you intend to reach, or the “who?“. in p.r. we call these groups your intended audience or your target public:

• clients
• suppliers
• employees
• the general public
• regulators
• shareholders

the list goes on. the reason you ask this is because if you don’t know this you can’t really decide what to do can you? it would be akin to telling senator conroy we don’t want his broadband censorship plan wouldn’t it? it would fall on deaf ears.

the second thing to remember is, social media is not a one-way street. it is very clearly two-way. you can’t just advertise at people. so if you want to drive a quick buck, social media will generally not work for you (there are exceptions, but they’re rare so forget about it). the thing about social media is, it’s about getting feedback. this is why i like to compare it to a c.r.m. project. it’s about listening as well.

so if you are able to answer the  “why?” and the “who?” you’re off to a good start and stay tuned for the next 101.

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