Words to live by in business no?
What does this mean to you and how have I managed to publish it on a social media blog about social media?
We get asked all the time the following:
- Should I tweet?
- Should I blog?
- Should I Facebook?
- Should I be on Linkedin?
The list goes on from there, but these are the most common and obvious questions we get as a team. We just got back from a major conference with New Horizons franchisees, where I personally got (at the start of my presentation on Twitter) a question that went like this – Why are we talking about Twitter and not Linkedin?
Needless to say after I introduced myself that was a odd moment for that kind of question, but it stands to my point that people ask if they ‘should’ be on this platform or that one.
My answer although not always goes something like this (with image below); can you really afford to be the last to develop a strategy for the fastest growing business and consumer networks in the world?
Can you afford to miss out on talking to this audience?
In my mind it is fine if a company chooses not to get involved but to do so before a proper evaluation of the facts, figures, possibly a strategy outline and finally a competitive analysis is just wrong.
Everyone I talk to that says I don’t know if I can afford to get involved I am nearly 100% behind them. I say you know what, sometimes adopting something new or different takes time, but I always always recommend training. If I or the MMM team train your organization and get you to internalize the value and you still decide to wait then you are making a strategic decision based on some level of informed knowledge which is way smarter.
If you think you can’t afford social media, like any other product or innovation, at least do you and your organization a favour and learn about it. Informed decisions are always best practice no matter the industry or title.
On the other hand remember what I said in the title ’tis best to dig your well before you’re thirsty’. Once you learn about social media you may realize it’s time to start engaging.
“…can you really afford to be the last to develop a strategy for the fastest growing business and consumer networks in the world?”
This answer was going to make me stop reading this post, but then you made a very important qualifying statement: “In my mind it is fine if a company chooses not to get involved but to do so before a proper evaluation of the facts, figures, possibly a strategy outline and finally a competitive analysis is just wrong.”
This is the part that I think a lot of people leave out. In the end, not every popular social media tool is going to be right for everyone. However, in order to really fully figure that out and have a compelling argument as to why a particular tool is not right for you, you have to take the time to fully understand that tool (objectively), explore how you could potentially use that tool to leverage relationships with your customers, internal audiences or investors and explore, as you mentioned, if your competitors are using this or similar tools and what results they are obtaining from their efforts.
Basically, I like the very open way you present this argument. You lay out a very structured approach for making these sometimes difficult decisions for companies to start “digging” or to seek out solutions elsewhere. After all, before a good contractor decides on a place to dig a well, they carefully test and evaluate whether or not the land they are selecting is suitable for it before they start to dig, regardless of what the neighboring people are doing.