It’s hard to ignore the explosion of social media and its impact on business. For example, LinkedIn Australia now has >2million members with a new member joining every second. It’s no longer a question of whether to involve yourself and your business in social media or not. The question is ‘how are you going to differentiate yourself and your business?’
Other difficult questions to answer include:
• How can we capitalise on the growth and connect with key business decision makers?
• How do we navigate the digital landscape, map a business growth strategy and effectively manage risk?
• How do we build an effective digital strategy, manage implementation and measure results?
And, above all things;
‘Where do we go to get quality advice?’
To be fair, there are many excellent practitioners currently advising on social media. Equally though, there are many people whose only qualification is they have a Facebook page or Twitter account – making them an expert.
Michael Field, strategic marketing consultant specialising in digital strategy, says:
“It reminds me of the lead-up to the year 2000 with Y2K experts offering advice and expertise. Similarly today we have the ‘social media expert’- willing to advise businesses on social media without linking the social media activity to the organisational strategy or business objectives.”
If you are considering appointing a social media expert, it’s important to ask for proof of where they have built a business, and how the growth in the business is directly attributable to the social media efforts and activities.
