Fair warning: This post is in-depth and a little longer than average, but very, very important.

As the dust begins to settle around the hype of social media, business are starting to take a closer look at the business case for using it. Clearly, without a return, no one (in their right mind) makes the investment. Take a look at what some in the industry are saying when it comes to failed social media campaigns:

“”(Businesses) will rush to the community and try to connect, but essentially they won’t have a mutual purpose, and they’ll fail,” Sarner said. By a “mutual purpose,” he means a way to serve both the company putting out the campaign and the audience interacting with it: finding that balance is not easy. The quirkiest and most addictive campaigns often provide little value for the company and turn out to be fads, whereas marketing efforts on the Web often don’t go over as well with the public.” Caroline McCarthy

“Most (social media campaigns) will fail for one of three reasons: (a) the strategy driving the idea sucks; (b) the execution sucks; or (c) the program provides no value to the end user.” Michael Lazerow

The worst thing we can do is to ignore this. Here’s how I take an approach to clients using buzzwords (ex: “I want a blog” or “I want my own Facebook”) to request our services:

1. Client Objectives. First and foremost we identify the client objectives. At the end of the day, they don’t want “a blog,” they want x number of identified prospects and $X in conversion rates.

2. Market Objectives. Next we take a look at the company’s target market, identify needs, and identify how we can meet these needs. (We don’t so much as discuss tools until after this meeting is completed.)

3. Value. Finally, we discuss what value the company has to provide. There needs to be a value in order to have subscribers. (Again, no discussion on how we’ll use the social media tools to deliver this value until after the meeting is complete!)

This is where the fun begins! This is when I get to go back to my office and create a proposal to knock their socks off. This is where I match some ambitious (but realistic) business plans to stellar social media tools and more!

But did you catch that? TOOLS COME LAST. They change all the time anyway! There is no sense in riding the hype and diving in eyes closed.

Tags: business, business plan, online marketing, small business, Social Media

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