I had the pleasure of interviewing author John Cass today for a chapter of my upcoming book, 18 Rules of Community Engagement. Cass is the author of the book, Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging and a great interview.
The 20-minute phone conversation resulted in two pages of great notes, but I found one thing he said to be so prolific and dead on, that I am going to give it its own blogpost. Here it is:
“Social Media tools don’t matter. What does matter is whether or not a company has an engagement strategy.”
He had me at hello.
A social media strategy is important, but if it doesn’t include how you will get people to care, it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. That’s my personal and professional opinion.
Anyone agree?
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8 comments
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February 18, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Matt Daniels
By engagement strategy, do you mean value proposition? You’d hope that every corporate initiative would be thinking from the consumer’s perspective…
February 19, 2009 at 12:03 am
Angela Connor
@Matt: From what John shared with me, what he means is not focusing so much on whether or not you’re blogging or on Twitter or any other platform for that matter, but what you do to really connect with people while you’re there. For instance, are you listening and responding? Smme may be listening but not responding. That’s not engagement.
February 19, 2009 at 4:35 am
Lena
Yeah as long as you’re listening, great. It’s just that some companies have excellent forums on their site, and the companies really engage with the users. But because forums aren’t particularly trendy, the company from an outside view may not come across as social… How important is the perception of being social and engaging, if there’s more to a site than meets the eye?
Interesting subject.
February 19, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Erika Kerekes
It’s all about going where your market is, right? And which tools you choose to use should be determined by who is in your market, which tools they are using (or are likely to be willing to try), and how they prefer to interact. So, if a company has a social engagement plan in place and
1) it is reaching and engaging with its core community/membership/market/constituency; and
2) the value to the members is apparent and measurable, in that membership is growing, members are evangelizing, conversation is vibrant; and
3) the value to the company is apparent and measurable against whatever goals they’ve set for their social media projects
then it doesn’t matter which tools they’re using to achieve these goals. If forums are working and established and are driving value, great – they may not have as much of a “cool factor” as Twitter, but there’s no reason to abandon them just because something new has come along.
That said, any social engagement strategy should be fluid and flexible enough to be able to test new technologies as they come along, to see if they too can add value. As we all know, it’s not necessarily one or the other.
February 23, 2009 at 3:15 pm
ilinap
This true regardless the media. You must engage your constituents whether it’s through events, advertising, newsletters, social media or anything else. Knowing your consumers and delivering what they want and need in a compelling, relevant manner is paramount. Message matters. Period.
February 24, 2009 at 10:52 am
Angela Connor
Ilinap I’m with you on that. “Engagement” is key and surprisingly, so many people still don’t get that.
March 3, 2009 at 1:33 am
Dutch blogger: ‘Social media is so much more than just social networks’ « Online Community Strategist
[...] Do social media tools really matter? [...]
August 24, 2009 at 8:56 am
s.jos
Social Media tools have served to help companies brand their products as accessible, fun, youthful, etc. How true this turns out to be can vary, though it tends not to deviate very far from ‘not very.’ I will say that Social Media tools have definitely made finding an audience a little easier for those of us who can’t afford advertising.