You have to shed some of your old skin to make room for the new one

While I don’t advertise it, I do give workshops on social media marketing and research. I give them on a “people/businesses ask me for them” basis. Why? Because I’m not really interested in telling you how to increase the number of Likes and/or followers. This is what the industry has become about. And businesses, like always, go head first without truly understanding what “this” is really about.

What I’m really interested in telling you, is what this “social stuff” means beyond marketing. What it means for how you organize, how you hire, how you deliver on your value proposition, how you work, how you communicate, etc. What it means to let real-time customer-insights direct your strategy.

As I told a buddy of mine recently, this is not an add on process where you just “install” a new feature to your business. My buddy wanted to know what the expected ROI was for these social media initiatives. This is a short sighted and correct MBA question. But that is not the question you should be asking because this is not an add on. It is not like adding new rims or a new intake system to your car, it’s the opposite.

It’s about subtracting some of what you already do to make room for the new.…