Why am I blogging again?

What is the biggest mistake companies make when developing their social media strategy? Forrester analyst, Josh Bernoff says in the media-blog, Church of the Customer, that it’s a focus on the means rather than the end that can cause problems.

“If you say ‘let's start a blog’ or ‘let's start a community’" you may be calling me in six months saying "How is this supposed to be helping me?" says Bernoff.

The means were pretty much my only focus when I started writing for this blog nearly nine months ago. As a first time blogger, just learning how to have an online discussion with an infinite audience was enough to get my head around – let alone actually doing it for real.

But at the risk of sounding clichéd, jumping in headfirst was the best thing for myself and for my company. Social media is not a space shuttle launch. You don’t need a degree in astrophysics to start writing and collaborating. You just need to do it.

Of course there are risks associated with this kind of headfirst strategy. For example, last week, the new Indiana Jones movie gave away 250,000 digital hats to its newly formed Facebook fan group. Problem is, while fans were receiving their virtual Fedoras they were also bashing the movie, calling it a flop in the waiting.

For this reason, your social media strategy cannot be static. The whole area is still so new that there are going to be unexpected changes and developments. But if you spend too much time trying to get together the world’s most complete strategy, you may soon look up from your desk and see that everyone else has left you behind.

/David