Maybe it’s all the years I spent helping companies “think strategically” about their business, systems, processes, customers, and of course social media that allow me to make such an emphatic statement. But in all my years of business, it always seems like those that have a solid strategy to start with end up further ahead. I can honestly say this is the case for me as well.
Take for example when I first started seeing this thing called “social media” on the horizon and knew I had to get involved with it as it could change the world. Indeed it has. But I didn’t have a strategy. I just started to get engaged, speak to others about it, and sell some consulting around helping others learn what I had experienced. It was getting me more knowledgeable and authoritative on the subject but not much revenue. I didn’t have a plan.
It took me a year or two in this mode before I figured out I had to “eat my own dogfood” as Microsoft would say. I needed to identify what I was doing and how I could leverage this into a business and generate revenues. So I started to really think about what I saw the value of social media to be and how this was going to help other companies generate revenues from using it. Since at that time I had already given over 100 speeches on the topic, I knew I had some good information and background to work from. So I started dissecting what I saw was the value of how people could benefit from using social media.
Along my journey I was branded as “Social Media for Executives” but that wasn’t right. It was the “who” I was targeting, not the why or what or how. Then as I thought about the real power of social media, it hit me. It was simply “getting more of the right people talking more about you” that was how social media really benefits people. It was at the heart of the viral nature, and getting others engaged and sharing with the people they connected to – online and in person. It was WORD-of-MOUTH.
So I immediately started building a strategy and plan to create a consulting practice around helping others benefit from this aspect of social media. The plan was a start and the strategy was simple. Create “ADVOCATES” with every client so they will “proactively” share with others. This was the heart of my strategy and now everything I do focuses on achieving this goal. of advocacy. I tell you my own story in the hopes that you will also embrace strategy as the starting point to making anything and everything happen in social media and your business. If you truly want to take advantage of this revolution, start with STRATEGY and success won’t elude you, it will embrace you.
