Building a Social Media Strategy Based on Business Goals

I spent this afternoon listening to Charlene Li and Jeremiah Owyang’s webinar on Developing A Social Strategy that I think is one of the better resources for companies thinking about creating a well structured, long-term strategy for engaging customers through social media.

They brought up some great points on how a company should go about building a social media strategy and I definitely believe in their approach which emphasizes that it’s not all about the technologies but about how you build long-term relationships online.

They did a good job of showing how companies like Dell, Wells Fargo and Kohls are using social media to build community, provide customer service and drive sales, however I would have preferred to see more examples of how smaller companies are succeeding in this space (See Duluth Pack).  There were, though, a good variety of sectors like retail, B2B, financial, CPG and technology to glean some interesting tidbits.

This webinar is a great place to start for companies thinking about creating a strategic approach to their social engagement strategy. I think Social Persuasion blog had a good synopsis for the key takeaways from the webinar:

• Social Strategy is More Than Promotion
• Don’t Forget Your Employees
• Understanding the True Value
• Social Strategy Means New Workflows
• Practice Open Leadership

They have another webinar coming up in April about getting your company ready for social media that I highly suggest.