Social Media Strategy?

I got dragged into a discussion with an acutely obnoxious individual over the topic of social media strategies. His take on it was that every firm ought to have a detailed social media strategy and commit significant budget and resources to its pursuit, but he seemed to take the necessity of social media as axiomatic.

His point was social media is something that should be a strategic initiative "just because" and was unable to present a reason that it should be pursued. Though looking into his profile after the debate, it became apparent to me that the "because" was "because my firm makes a great deal of cash selling products related to social media."

So I remain unconvinced ... but rather than reacting to an argument based on a feeble premise, I mean to explore the reasons I maintain that social media is not a strategic initiative.

Fundamentally, it has to do with the nature of strategy itself: a strategy is undertaken to gain a benefit (or respond to a problem). While there are a number of case studies that demonstrate the tactical (read "not strategic") outcomes of leveraging social media, even its strongest aficionados are hard pressed to suggest that having a million Facebook friends results directly to the accomplishment of any goal (unless the goal is merely to have a lot of Facebook friends for the sake of having them, which again becomes a tautology).

An analogy: if your goal is to build a house, you need a plan to build the house. And while a hammer is a useful tool that will be used extensively in achieving that goal, there is not a need to have a "hammer strategy" - and doing so can in fact become counterproductive if your desire to use the tool causes you to focus exclusively upon it, to the exclusion of more productive tools that might be more efficient and effective to a given need.

That is, a hammer is great when you need to drive a nail - but it doesn't drive screws, cut plywood, lay tile, and do any of the other tasks needed to accomplish the goal. And granted, an hardcore hammer-fan might be able to find a way to use it to do these things, but it would merely be a circus trick, and the outcome would likely be worse than using the right tool for the task.

That is to say that the goal of a company is serve the needs of its customers, and to be successful in that goal it needs to serve its customers well, attending to the core value they seek to obtain by doing business with it. Customer experience is a component of that strategy, which may itself be seen as strategic because the core product or service can be considered as an element in strategic activities (customers may accept a more expensive or less serviceable product if their entire experience of interacting with a firm is positive).

Social media, meanwhile, is a tool that is leveraged in order to improve customer experience. Where it supports the strategy, it is to be applied; where it does not support the strategy, it is not. But most importantly, it is a tool that is used to support the strategy, and not a strategic initiative unto itself.

Counterpoint

I can think of one counterpoint to the position I've taken: social media is not a tool that is ready on demand. That is, a company that has shunned the social channels cannot successfully turn up whenever it needs to use them and expect to have success - which seems to be what many actually do, and have a correspondingly dour perspective on its value - but it must instead put ongoing effort into developing and fostering its social connections in the digital channels.

Another comparison: when it comes to meatspace social networking, you must place effort into meeting and establishing a relationship with people long in advance of asking them for assistance. The fair-weather friend who turns up only when he needs something from you is generally unwelcome, and is unlikely to get it.

And in that sense, online social channels require an ongoing process of support and development - so while having a million "friends" is of no strategic value, to have that resource ready for use in pursuit of a stratagem when the time of need arises requires a great deal of ongoing effort in times when it is not.

I don't think that makes it strategic, per se, but that does not mean it's unimportant to undertake the necessary actions to develop and maintain the tool because there are instances in which it will be needed. It requires a great deal of time and effort on an ongoing basis in order for it to be useful when it has the potential to contribute to something that is strategic, and expending that effort will pay considerable dividends when and if the need for it should arise.

So in that sense, a firm may have a series of actions it must undertake to acquire and maintain a social media presence that can then be leveraged when there's a strategic need for it. And the breadth and scope of those activities is something like a strategy ... but I'm still left with the sense that it doesn't really live in the same realm.

It could merely be that the English language lacks a proper word to indicate that something is desirable because of its potential uses in accomplishing strategic goals, and that "strategy" is an important-sounding term that bridges this gap, but it's ill-fitting and somewhat misleading.