chroma: Social Media Bestest Practice

Last week I was tagged by Adrian over at Zeus Jones for the "Best Practices in Social Media" meme, so here are some thoughts.

Just to preface this somewhat, I want to say that I'm always a little wary of Social Media "best practices". For starters, I don't consider social media to be a "channel", that we must learn how to use (more on that in a minute).

"Best practices" feels so tactical, and while I think that a solid understanding of the basics is important (what does rss do? how can technorati help me listen to "the conversation" about my brand?), most of that can be taught fairly quickly. Spend a bit of time with the Common Craft videos, and you'll know more than enough to get started in the social media space. Even then, new technologies and capabilities are coming up all the time, so nothing beats trying things out, seeing what works, and moving on.

On that note, it seems to me that most of the best practices that I've come across are common sense. I must have seen thousands of posts about the importance of "Listening" in the world of social media (Dell and Starbucks are two examples). Really, do we need to beat this to death? Of course it's important! There is no need to complicate this. Real time research and feedback with social media tools is fairly straightforward, or at least it should be. If these count as "best practices" I'm all for them, how can I not be?

So if all of this is so obvious why isn't everyone making better "use" of social media tools? To me, it comes down to not fully appreciating what the upshot of all this social media "boogaloo" (to quote a beloved former creative director and colleague) is. That is, social media makes it much easier for us to ignore and bypass things that we aren't interested in, find out who is bullshitting us, and talk about things that are valuable (including things like content or the old favourite, "utility").

In a nutshell, the challenge that Social Media poses is a strategic challenge, not a tactical one. Given consumer empowerment, abundant information and interconnected networks, what is your brand going to do? What is going to stand for, or represent?
In other words,addressing questions like, how will your brand be more social relevant? What value can you provide? What behaviours, as in real human behaviours, not "consumer" behaviours, will you address? How can you improve people's lives? How can you improve society? Or the world?

If you are the same old boring, selfish, uninteresting, cold, exploitative business, brand (or even person?), it won't make a difference what best practices you choose to follow in social media. The key here is to stand for something in a way that acknowledges the wider network(s) and "ecosystem" in which you operate.

Focusing on tactics makes it too easy to think that either social media is something that can be gamed ("they promised to get our video seeded on all of the You Tubes!"), or that it is just another channel to do the same old interruption marketing.

Social Media tools shift the balance of power, and while everyone nods their head and thinks this is obvious, I'm not convinced that enough attention is paid to how the recalibration effects just about everything. Music, media, fashion or politics, they've all changed as a result of flattening media models and the emergence of efficient networks.
(Yet another great piece from Umair, looking at how Google's Chrome proves that they get this better than most).

So, instead of focusing on tactics, business and brands can do a lot worse than to spend a little more time thinking about how culture and society is changing, and how this is being reflected in people's behaviour. That means considering what qualifies as currency in networked environments (things like reputation), as well as how they can actually provide value (this is a good bit from Google that Aki pointed out).

Adrian posted recently about "aligned interests", and how remarkable it is that brands like Wal-Mart seem to be recognizing a future in which their interests are aligned with their customer's interests, and how quickly this change is occuring within a huge company like Wal Mart. Great point. This fascinating process of realigning corporate behaviour and "marketing", and changing the fundamental relationship that companies have with people so that things are more in sync is, to me, the very best practice that anyone can learn from.

So, the simple best practice is for brands to spend more time discovering and nurturing what they stand for, their wider role and social meaning, and how they can provide value in an increasingly empowered and interconnected ecosystem of real people (not "target consumers").

Do that, and you will have done a great deal to ensure that the "social media" will mostly take care of itself.

Have to tag a few others. Chime in Neil, Jason, the man like Faris, Paul and Lee.

Comments

dino,

you're right that 'best practice' sounds so dry and corporate.

but what if you think of the idea of 'practice' in the way that buddhists do, in terms of the meditation and introspection that is key to their buddhist 'practice'

in this case it's very much about shifting perspective and, like any good host, really thinking about the experience of your guests.

watch this space (or mine) for a more thought-through answer.

Posted by: Lee | September 09, 2008 at 11:58 AM

love it lee! it is a shift in perspective, good point.

by the way, one of your posts a while back about the importance of strategy and planning was lurking in the back of my mind as i wrote this rant against best practices.

Posted by: Dino | September 09, 2008 at 12:35 PM