Re-Post: Social Media Strategists: Can we learn from the past?

I had a recent comment in a post that made me remember this experiment I made back in 2008; still relevant today (I Believe)

>>>>> Original Post published May 29 2008: 

For a while know I have been worried that Social Media, Social Networking, Online Communities seem to be heading down a path that is familiar to me, and that I’d rather have all of us avoid if we can….

I did an experiment: I searched for the key reasons CRM projects failed; I took snippets of one of the the articles I found (here the original, credit and eyeballs due to Adrian Mello) and I replaced CRM by Social Media…. Please read the results below; sounds to me we are at risk of repeating the mistakes, and we need to make an effort to learn from the past:

·         …It’s much more common for SOCIAL MEDIA projects to fail because of a lack of alignment with the business goals, inadequate organizational preparation, and other problems arising from ineffective business planning and management….

·         ..One of the biggest sources of failure arises when enterprises put SOCIAL MEDIA tools in place before forging a clear customer strategy…..SOCIAL MEDIA tools can be used for a variety of purposes so companies need to identify their goals…Do you want to reduce the costs of handling customer inquiries? Do you want to acquire new customers? … Without answering these questions companies usually pick the wrong SOCIAL MEDIA tools.

·         Some enterprises have a customer strategy, but it’s far too broad. Overreaching SOCIAL MEDIA projects usually fail…..Companies can avoid failures by establishing carefully defined short-term business objectives.

·         Although project objectives should be highly specific, they must still fit into an overall strategy…. When they are administered as isolated "stove pipes," SOCIAL MEDIA programs usually fail…..Individual SOCIAL MEDIA projects need to be coordinated and project leaders need to communicate with each other.

·         ….Even enterprises that develop a sensible customer strategy will still fail in their SOCIAL MEDIA efforts if they don’t modify their organizations to reflect that strategy. A SOCIAL MEDIA rollout must shape appropriate employee attitudes and behavior before the technology is deployed…

·         ….A common misconception about SOCIAL MEDIA is that it deals only with superficial processes due to its customer-facing nature. To be successful, SOCIAL MEDIA requires deep change within an organization…..

That should be enough to make my point; what do you think?

Filiberto Selvas