If you ask someone in the social media space what they consider to be the most important factor in a social media strategy they will usually say “listening” (or perhaps transparency/etc.) I cringe when I hear people say this especially the “experts.” To me, saying that listening is the most important factor of a social media strategy is like saying that your title tags are the most important factor in SEO. Sure the title tags are given more weight then many other variables, but if you just go around changing your title tags while ignoring everything else, chances are you won’t get very far, the same is true for social media.
Listening is important but I think if we are to look at successful strategies we need to get past breaking down individual variables. Social media as a whole is about connections, interactions, relationships, sharing information etc. Listening starts off the process but if you just listen, you are going to fail with your social media strategy. Sure listening is great, but then what? If you listen but don’t act do you think your strategy is going to succeed? No
The point of all of this is to get people to start thinking about social media (and perhaps SEO) differently. When someone says what is the most important factor for a successful social media strategy it really doesn’t make sense. Social media IS a strategy in and of itself and in order to succeed you should not be thinking about “the most important factors.” They are all the most important factors and they are all interconnected. By saying “what are the most important factors” you are already making your social media strategy less effective. Think about it, are you really going to go after some of the factors and not the others? If I say that listening, being transparent, and authenticity are the most important things to go after are you going to ignore acting on feedback, encouraging discussion, rewarding users, etc? I would hope not.
So, what do I think is the most important factor in a social media strategy? Social Media
Do you agree or disagree and why?
thanks for reading
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