Social Media – You Still Need a Strategic Plan

I took part in a “social media round table” Monday night and the attendees were employees of a mixture of different credit unions. And no, we didn’t actually sit at a round table, or any other table for that matter.

The co-presenter was @cuwarrior, someone that I consider to be an “outside the box” type of thinker. Not to mention he is a fellow 2009 40 Leaders Under Forty recipient.

One of the first things I did was ask the audience, by show of hands, if they read inserts that are included with bills they receive in the mail. [Note: standard practice for many businesses is to send inserts to those receiving paper statements.] Of the 45 or so folks in attendance only one raised their hand. The purpose of this question was to point out that it isn’t a very effective medium.

I then talked about the challenges that come with the typical marketing methods and explained that we need to quit acting as if social media is the redheaded step child. Instead, it should be embraced as part of the communication mix. Let me say that one more time. Instead, it should be embraced as part of the communication mix.

Millions of people (as you already know) use outlets such as Facebook and the numbers continue to climb. Ignoring social media is almost the same as saying, “I want to purposefully ignore current customers as well as potential customers.” That’s bad.

In no way am I suggesting that you just hop on the bandwagon and start creating various social media accounts in hopes that things will suddenly take off. They wont – I can almost guarantee it.

Step back and go to your roots – create a strategic plan and give yourself a road map. In my opinion it’s a crucial step because social media has lots of moving parts and you can easily get off track.