Of course, it seems obvious when I state it that way, but my recent work in social media has really brought this into the forefront for me.  “Strategy” - strategic insight, intelligence, targeted recommendations - has always been part of what I’ve promoted in my consulting company over the last seven or so years (it’s even in the company name).  However, strategy was always packaged as the deliverable, and our research reputation as the product.  Since I had a strong rep,  and partner and client organizations and firms that knew the quality of our work, this mindset had always worked for us.

About a year and a half ago, I made the conscious decision to build expertise in the world of social media  as a natural extension of our research strengths to include online markets and communities.  I spent much of a year researching and teaching myself on the technologies behind social media analytics (see my other posts), and building partnerships of one type or another with various analytics providers.  I armed myself with best practices, success stories and failures.  So armed, I began promoting social media intelligence services to my clients and my network.

I quickly learned that most organizations are actually quite interested in social media for marketing and public relations, but are either remedially ignorant of the most simple basics of the social web or are institutionally afraid of making the first step.  While I could portray very convincing and targeted examples of how social media intelligence could be valuable, getting clients to the point where they could take advantage of the more sophisticated analytical services that I could provide always required me to help them them formulate an entire social media strategy.  Not just comprehensive strategies, but social media roadmaps that begin with safe and limited “baby steps” into blogging, Twitter, and Facebook.

Thus, it was something of a minor epiphany when I realized that what I was selling, after all, was comprehensive social media strategies and roadmaps, with my more “high-end” technologies, intelligence tools, and research services taking a backseat.  Of course, this is a pretty standard framework for a full-service marketing or PR agency, but it was a bit of a mental shift for me.

My experience, of course, is partially mediated by my market (Florida, small-to-mid sized organizations and companies).  However, I expect that any agency offering any type of social media service will find itself in a similar position - having to offer comprehensive strategy and a considerable amount of hand-holding along the way.

| Permalink | Trackback