Bridging the Gap Between Strategy and Execution
By: Teresa Basich
Many of you know that Radian6 has a fairly heavy event presence — we speak and attend numerous industry conferences each year, and we appreciate the exposure and opportunity for connection that attendance brings us. Being at these events also gives us a chance to talk one-on-one with the folks leading the charge (or hoping to) with social media use and integration in their respective companies.
Quite often, when we get to enjoy those face-to-face moments, we hear, “You’ve given us some great theoretical and strategic ideas around social media use, but how do we do it?”
Here’s where the tough love comes in. We’re not going to give you all the answers. It’s your job to come up with the specific steps you must take to get from Point A to Point B (or it’s the job of your agency).
The frequency of this question begs a larger one, though: How can we help bridge that gap between strategy and execution to help organizations understand what they need to do to either get their social media programs up and running or make critical changes to their current strategies to continue down a successful path? What is that bridge of understanding comprised of?
Appealing to Human Nature
Our inimitable Director of Community, Lauren Vargas, wrote just last month about the various characters within a business team that might have great intent but struggle with program execution. Identifying which of these characters live within your team and appealing to their nature is a step in the right direction to getting a social media strategy executed.
For example, in dealing with The Overthinker type, managers must work with these people to push them through that analysis paralysis, or keep them from getting to that point through regular affirmation and a system of accountability.
Now, we’re not saying coddle these characters, but it’s important for any manager to learn about their team members’ idiosyncrasies and stalling points so he or she can devise a means of helping those folks past their hurdles. That, essentially, is what a manager is tasked to do — help his or her employees get their work done to meet strategic team goals and objectives.
Turning Fear Into Curiosity
It’s a “universal” truth that getting started is almost always the hardest part in performing any task. We fear what we don’t know, and even if we know what we’re up against, our minds can play some pretty devilish tricks on convincing us that this time we’ll fail.
Getting past that fear to taking the first step is an exercise in mind games. One of the ways to view stepping into social media is as an experiment of sorts; create your hypothesis for your experiment (e.g., set your goals for your program) then start moving through process iterations and tweaking things as necessary to get closer to proving your hypothesis (e.g., achieving your goal).
Here’s the thing — you will fail. Parts of your social media program will fail, because that’s the nature of life. When was the last time you achieved a goal by following the very first strategy you created for reaching it? Has that ever happened? Probably not. Too many external factors change for that to be possible. Life and business are made to be successful through experimentation and iteration.
Develop a culture within your team that supports effort, insight and learning, and curiosity to allay the fears your team members will inevitably face stepping into unchartered territory.
What else can we do to close the gap between social media strategy development and execution? Hopefully these couple suggestions got your wheels turning a bit, as we’re hoping you’ll share your ideas in the comments.
For starters, kudos to your usage of the adjective "inimitable" to describe your colleague. So much classier than just calling someone "top notch" or the like.
I've never had the pleasure of attending a Radian6 presentation in person, but if I had, I certainly would be one of those who fall into the category of follow up questioners you described.
I wish I had insight beyond that shared in your post to answer the "What else can we do?" question. You've nailed down the most common barrier: inability to take the first step toward execution. Applies to so many efforts beyond social media: losing 10 pounds, reading more/watching TV less, volunteering, recycling, etc. It is so easy to procrastinate on action by instead reading one more case study or book, following one more blog or hashtag, worrying about one more reason it won't work. Anything other than doing something tangible. Again, your advice on how to get past this level is spot on.
But I also wonder about how to make progress when the strategy has been laid, but the resource cupboard is either bare, or owned by someone else who does not have the commitment you do. I suppose the easy answer to the latter is become a better marketer internally and build a better case.
But on the former, there can be a chicken-and-egg problem: we cannot dedicate resources to social media efforts unless there is proof that the results will outweigh the results of whatever these resources are currently engaged in (or will be hired to do), but we cannot gain such required proof without the resources.
I would guess the advice here could be along the lines of either 1) look to results from other organizations similar to yours to gain traction, or 2) take baby steps in implementation to gain proof with whatever meager resources you have. Neither of these options are much fun.
Goodness, such a fantastic comment!
If a strategy is already laid out, then the assumption is that within that strategy resources have been identified to execute it. Okay, that's *my* assumption, but I do believe that is one of the most important pieces of ANY strategy, social media or not. Otherwise, why go through the exercise of strategy development? To some degree, your strategy is going to be contingent on what you can do now, right? If the resource cupboard is totally bare, your strategy and execution will have to be highly targeted and, like you said, comprised of baby steps to gain proof.
Another suggestion for proving the need for resources and investment is stockpile cases and results of social media programs that don't have proper support. Or showing the difference in monetary investment between current marketing initiatives and a well-planned social media strategy. If you can, tack on the price of a badly-planned, worse-executed social media strategy to show there's value in the investment of a good strategy AND well-prepared team, but little value in the strategy without support.
Also, putting your social media plan within a timeframe (much like [again] an experiment), with a defined end point, can help with that value proving effort, too — you can present your results of that program at the end of a 6- or 12-month period, from an objective standpoint, giving your leaders all they need to make a well-informed decision as to whether to continue the program or not.
I know that the options for gaining social media buy-in are no fun, and that there's a lot of work to get through beforehand. But in more instances than we'd care to admit, the leg work we must do to prove the value of something is rarely a walk in the park, but often it's well worth it.
Thank you so much for the comment, Terry!
Measurement: What seems missing here (for me) is relevancy. It is results based performance criteria – making the evidence "well formed".
Do you mean measuring the results of your social media program? Just trying to gain some clarification so I can chew on what you're saying a bit more.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by radian6, Media Rockets, Billy Feltham, webcarecompany, Brad Dorman and others. Brad Dorman said: RT @radian6: Today on the blog, Bridging the Gap Between Strategy and Execution: http://bit.ly/gLAmT2 [...]
For starters, kudos to your usage of the adjective "inimitable" to describe your colleague. So much classier than just calling someone "top notch" or the like.
I've never had the pleasure of attending a Radian6 presentation in person, but if I had, I certainly would be one of those who fall into the category of follow up questioners you described.
I wish I had insight beyond that shared in your post to answer the "What else can we do?" question. You've nailed down the most common barrier: inability to take the first step toward execution. Applies to so many efforts beyond social media: losing 10 pounds, reading more/watching TV less, volunteering, recycling, etc. It is so easy to procrastinate on action by instead reading one more case study or book, following one more blog or hashtag, worrying about one more reason it won't work. Anything other than doing something tangible. Again, your advice on how to get past this level is spot on.
But I also wonder about how to make progress when the strategy has been laid, but the resource cupboard is either bare, or owned by someone else who does not have the commitment you do. I suppose the easy answer to the latter is become a better marketer internally and build a better case.
But on the former, there can be a chicken-and-egg problem: we cannot dedicate resources to social media efforts unless there is proof that the results will outweigh the results of whatever these resources are currently engaged in (or will be hired to do), but we cannot gain such required proof without the resources.
I would guess the advice here could be along the lines of either 1) look to results from other organizations similar to yours to gain traction, or 2) take baby steps in implementation to gain proof with whatever meager resources you have. Neither of these options are much fun.
Goodness, such a fantastic comment!
If a strategy is already laid out, then the assumption is that within that strategy resources have been identified to execute it. Okay, that's *my* assumption, but I do believe that is one of the most important pieces of ANY strategy, social media or not. Otherwise, why go through the exercise of strategy development? To some degree, your strategy is going to be contingent on what you can do now, right? If the resource cupboard is totally bare, your strategy and execution will have to be highly targeted and, like you said, comprised of baby steps to gain proof.
Another suggestion for proving the need for resources and investment is stockpile cases and results of social media programs that don't have proper support. Or showing the difference in monetary investment between current marketing initiatives and a well-planned social media strategy. If you can, tack on the price of a badly-planned, worse-executed social media strategy to show there's value in the investment of a good strategy AND well-prepared team, but little value in the strategy without support.
Also, putting your social media plan within a timeframe (much like [again] an experiment), with a defined end point, can help with that value proving effort, too — you can present your results of that program at the end of a 6- or 12-month period, from an objective standpoint, giving your leaders all they need to make a well-informed decision as to whether to continue the program or not.
I know that the options for gaining social media buy-in are no fun, and that there's a lot of work to get through beforehand. But in more instances than we'd care to admit, the leg work we must do to prove the value of something is rarely a walk in the park, but often it's well worth it.
Thank you so much for the comment, Terry!
Yes indeed Mcbsmith–all our clients are skittish and wish to know the ROI, even sales conversion…but strangely they know "they have to do this", to quote them. Many have been led to believe social media is Google ads and making a Facebook page or putting a Twitter logo and/or posts on their site. They admit to "not understanding IT". Ahhhh, the IT word. It is nice to be called on to answer that question.
Even if the metrics are impressive thus far i.e. the growth rate, number of users, when you mine down with filters by brands and topics, the numbers drop. The conversations may be few; but, this is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor and reap the rewards of being the early bird. No one, but no one, must be a late entrant. Look at how Microsoft missed the web. Dell is just starting to attempt a comeback. I think social media may be their enabler–but they will have to provide a better PC and better service!
Social Media won't make a brand. Vapor never lasts. In fact, it can kill a brand faster. Customers will Twitter brand faux-pas to throngs of followers in the "Twitter of an eye". This bodes well for quality and service. Brands will begin behaving better with the customer cops out there every second.
I have checked many solutions and Radian6 is smokin hot…and great people too. Go Canada! Radian6 is the Blackberry of Social Media Platforms.
Now to get our customers to build their own, "command centres". We at 40Hz, "Business at Higher Frequency", have a few good ideas in place. Brands cannot thrive without this.
Yes indeed Mcbsmith–all our clients are skittish and wish to know the ROI, even sales conversion…but strangely they know "they have to do this", to quote them. Many have been led to believe social media is Google ads and making a Facebook page or putting a Twitter logo and/or posts on their site. They admit to "not understanding IT". Ahhhh, the IT word. It is nice to be called on to answer that question.
Even if the metrics are impressive thus far i.e. the growth rate, number of users, when you mine down with filters by brands and topics, the numbers drop. The conversations may be few; but, this is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor and reap the rewards of being the early bird. No one, but no one, must be a late entrant. Look at how Microsoft missed the web. Dell is just starting to attempt a comeback. I think social media may be their enabler–but they will have to provide a better PC and better service!
Social Media won't make a brand. Vapor never lasts. In fact, it can kill a brand faster. Customers will Twitter brand faux-pas to throngs of followers in the "Twitter of an eye". This bodes well for quality and service. Brands will begin behaving better with the customer cops out there every second.
I have checked many solutions and Radian6 is smokin hot…and great people too. Go Canada! Radian6 is the Blackberry of Social Media Platforms.
Now to get our customers to build their own, "command centres". We at 40Hz, "Business at Higher Frequency", have a few good ideas in place. Brands cannot thrive without this.
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