While the calendar tells us it is 2011, 2010 remains an unfinished year for Social Media. In 2010, companies large and small, traditional media outlets, government organizations, and, yes, naysayers, finally showed an overwhelming interest in Social Media. These newcomers, however, arrived armed with tough questions, demands for new data and the technical pressures of scale. In return, Social Media is playing for higher stakes, but that means we are required to prove our value collectively, as an industry, and individually, as professionals.
In 2011, we must be able to answer these questions about Social Media, not just with rhetoric, but with actions, examples, and, ahem, honesty. If the answers cannot be measured, fess up. If something is truly intangible, let's accept it as as an intangible asset just as goodwill is recognized on balance sheets, rather than throwing dollar signs on influencers' tweets.
These questions won't go away until we have solid answers: You've shown us that Social Media drives KPI's, but how does it really drive ROI? What's wrong with hiring an intern to manage our Social Media activities? Social media works in customer service, what about in research, product, HR, legal, c-suite, etc...? Traditional media's reach metrics won't do. How do you define "reach" for Social Media? Social Media is supposed to scale better, why doesn't the technology scale? Are Twitter and Facebook able to scale? Who owns Social Media within the organizational structure? IT? Marketing? PR? What skills am I looking for in hiring Social Media professionals? Don't I already have these people in house? Should we monitor our employees' conversations on Social Media? Geo-location: what percent of the data is available and accurate? What are the flaws in the data? What is the role of an agency with regards to Social Media? Doesn't every agency know how incorporate Social Media into a strategy? WTF does "viral" mean and how does one "go viral"?
These questions are just the beginning. What did I miss?
Liza Sperling
Please visit http://www.lizasperling.com to read more.
