Technology, not for Technology’s Sake

We frequently get panicked calls from CEOs, CMOs and all types of business professionals all in a twitter because their chief competitor is now on Twitter. They often ask, “How quickly can you get us started on Twitter . . . or Facebook . . . or whatever social media platform they are concerned about.

After we applaud them for their interest in social media, we tell them not to abandon the basic tenets of business and marketing that they’ve built their careers on. We totally agree with Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research who wrote the excellent book on social technologies, Groundswell. They recommend the POST method:

• People – What are your customers ready for?
• Objectives – What are your goals?
• Strategy – How do you want relationships with your customers to change?
• Technology – Then finally, which are the appropriate technologies?

Through this evaluation process, we sometimes recommend that a company not employ social media strategies, but most often we determine that these increasingly powerful communication tools are an excellent way for the company to listen to what their customers and competitors are saying, engage in two-way conversations with their target audiences, and energize their most enthusiastic customers to exponentially boost the power of their word of mouth.