Let’s not carried away.
The social media Canvass replete with one platform after another.
Most firms don’t understand their website proposition, let alone how they might earn the attention of their (loyal) cohort of clients.
Just imagine every firm enabled with these platforms and tools at their disposal.
And then what?
Your clients skim the web only to discover that every firm is offering:
A free e-Book
A newsletter rich in content
Facebook and offers of some description
On-line legal services
And on and on.
Given the rapidity of change, my sense is that everyone is pushing past the hyperbole and dipping their toe in one social media pond after another. It won’t be long before every firm looks the same with each vying for the same set of eyes (and some more).
How then will you create a USP?
Stop and Focus.
You need to consider not only the platforms but how social media underpins your firm’s strategy and objectives. How many firms have revisited their strategic objective, mission statement or business development plans to allow for the expansion of their on-line presence?
The technology should not be driving your endeavours.
Your engagement with your internal and external markets should be high up your list of objectives.
But perhaps before that do you have a content strategy?
If you are going to scale your presence and convert eyeballs or 140 characters to new instructions, then you have to be committed to rewriting your approach to content.
How many people are natural storytellers in the practice?
Will you hire an ‘expert’?
Will you fail faster; or iterate for all you are worth?
Perhaps all of this is fanciful.
Will we ever reach a stage where more than a handful of committed souls push the envelope to breaking point?
Frankly, most firms are only interested in social media for what they can get out of it. But, for many, that is why it won’t work, any more than it does for the plethora of experts who have only one thing in mind: to sell you.
Trouble is when you are dealing with serious issues, you can’t fake it. And you will go down in a ball of flames if you think you can expose just a bit of free stuff – making some outrageous claim in the process – and then follow it up with a load of lightweight crap.
Stop and focus.
Before you roll out your entire programme, start with the end in mind. Yes it is as old as the hills but it will inform you better than anything else and will keep you on the straight and narrow when your competitors start copying you.
Paint your canvass brightly.
Don’t lose heart.
And adopt a warrior spirit.