SXSWi left me exhausted, excited, and baffled at the practice of social media strategy. While the majority of the speakers were thoughtful, active, and are clearly providing value to their clients, I couldn’t help but think that many folks I met in passing were just adding “social media strategy” to their titles & resumes, telling their clients to start Twitter accounts and link them to Facebook, and hoping for the best. Most folks have been doing it for less than a year, and few could or would articulate their methods.
Which got me thinking about my own practice. I want to add this to my skill set, not just my resume. So what do I do, how do I get to a point where I can accurately evaluate my clients needs and devise a social media strategy that will be truly beneficial to them? Only then can I call myself a social media consultant/strategist/ grand poobah or what have you.
I was very lucky to get into User Experience when it, too, was still something of a nascent practice in the tech industry in 2000. I was privileged (even if I didn’t recognize it as much as I should have back then) to work with smart strategic thinkers like future UX rock star Alex Wright and my early mentor Kristee Rosendahl at a premium boutique full-service web shop where I learned how to collaborate with visual design and engineering. The atmosphere was encouraging, their “hire for culture, train for skill” motto pre-dating Zappos’ culture-first philosophy by a good ten years. (No slight against Tony Hsieh, I am *thrilled* that he is promoting this healthy business and life practice with such success now).
This time around, I have another incredible opportunity to be involved in a nascent and vital technology practice. But the setting is different. As a freelancer, I am not in a position to watch the rockstar from backstage and take notes. I may be in the first couple of rows, but I’m still out in the crowd jostling for a good view.
I’ve been sorting through the hundreds upon hundreds of posts, practitioners, experts etc., and dove even deeper into the sea of social networking. If I could turn reading Mashable into a full time job, I absolutely would. I worship at the throne of Beth Kanter and dive into Facebook’s Marketing Solutions . I immigrate to the Twitterverse and tweet about my work at smartest-content-on-the-web FORA.tv and other orgs, while maintaining a real friends-only account where I can say anything. I finally start this public blog so I can get back to writing in more than 140 characters. Keep it authentic by participating on sites I actually use and enjoy like LinkedIn and GoodReads. Make sure all my Kiva activity and NetTuesday meetups post to my Facebook account. Go to conferences, lectures, and meetups until I’ve got videos and webinars and ideas coming out of my ears. Draw on my experience as a discussion board moderator and online community participant years ago on Burning Man’s Eplaya as a cautionary tale about fear-based management, and look with delight at the examples of positive interactions happening all around now. I revel in the evolution of the catch-all “community” term to specifics like “engagement”.
So how do I effectively translate all this great knowledge and experience being shared on this crowded cloud into true value for my clients?
My research into the core aspects, tools, techniques and measurements of user engagement through social media will be on going, that is a given. But if there is one thing I’ve discovered about myself is that I’m a hands-on learner. Theory doesn’t sink in until I can put it into practice. I’m working on a pro bono social media plan for the amazing Women’s Foundation of California so I can learn by doing.
I’m interested in format for social media plans that folks are doing. What are your deliverables, why do you use them, and how do they benefit your clients?