Meme: Social Media Best Practices

I’ve been tagged with couple of memes recently and have finally managed to get round to converting ideas to words in the second case. In the first instance my apologies to Nicky and Andy as I'm so late with their question as to who are my three most admired communicators I can't imagine my comtribution is relevant!

More recently I’ve been tagged by Badger Gravling aka Dan Thornton who passed on the meme to share best social media marketing practices.

If we put aside the idea that I am uncomfortable with the term social media marketing then I want to approach this issue from the more fundamental position of what best practices should organisations adopt to make their communications relevant and effective in a digital age, rather than what’s the best way to secure maximum traction for my "viral".

The emphasis - to me at least - is on social media best practice, rather than marketing best practice. This is encapsulated in a three word maxim that we talk about a lot at Edelman: Be, Do, Say.

Let me elucidate:

Be – as Dan points out in his post, companies cannot turn on a social media marketing strategy overnight. It takes an (often) significant investment of time and understanding to review an organisation’s business goals to make them compatible with the expectations of a contemporary, digitally enabled society.  This is the first big hurdle organisations must overcome before they can deliver any kind of social media activity successfully

Do – If they can cross this first hurdle then the organisation should e able to deliver its corporate promises. This is the ‘Do’ bit. Companies must put their money where their mouth is and prove their commitment to open, transparent and authentic business practice through action

Say – Once the first pieces of the jigsaw are in place then – and only then – can organisations shout about how good they are. But even then it isn’t enough to simply change your ways for a sort-term campaign or brand/product re-launch. A commitment to this new way of working and communicating is essential. I call this approach ‘sustainable communications’. It requires a long-term, far-sighted approach to your business in order to sustain a long-term, far-sighted approach to communications.

So there are my views - and possibly the first and only meme I have followed up this year! Given I'm already behind on this one I think I'll not pass it on.Apologies to Dan!

Technorati tags: Social Media Marketing, Social Media Best Practices, Dan Thornton