You accept the diagnosis that SOCIAL MEDIA IS CHANGING EVERYTHING.
You’ve heard that your company’s long term health requires that you GET STARTED IMMEDIATELY.
Fortunately, all the experts agree on EXACTLY WHAT YOU SHOULD DO.
But wait a minute….
You no longer blindly accept courses of treatment just because they’re the state of the art in medical technology, so doesn’t your organization’s health deserve a second opinion about social media that’s grounded in critical thinking instead of technology cheerleading?
Before going under the knife, ask your doctor:
How much of the strategy is based on the first mover advantage? Are you really building strong bonds that will persist when there is 10 times as much competition in the social media space and the initial thrill is gone? If you’re just trying to be the first one to get where everyone else is going it’s not a strategy but a race to the bottom.
Is it based on expanding your communications toolkit or moving you to a new paradigm? More opportunities for customers to “learn from” you, you to learn from customers, and customers to learn from each other just leverage the instructional thinking that puts a priority on knowledge. The new competitive advantage lies in the knowledge flows that support constructive thinking and “learning with” each other.
Does it directly support your business strategy or is your business strategy being modified to support the capabilities of social media? You may need to be cool, but you definitely need to make money. Are you where you want to be on that spectrum?
Is the advice itself a manifestation of the psychological transformation from hierarchical to social thinking? Emergence is the byword of social media, but there’s nothing very emergent about experts and the traditional consultant approach. Are you and your consultants making your decisions about social media in the same, hierarchical way that social media is making obsolete?