Social Media as a "Just in Case" Strategy

Do you have any type of insurance?  Medical, dental, home, and car perhaps?  Why?  You own insurance so that in case anything bad happens, you’ll be protected.  At its worst, social media is an insurance policy for your brand online.  At its best, social media is a way to evolve how your organization does business.  However, is it worth to invest money in social media “just in case?”

• Just in case someone starts trashing your brand online or saying something that isn’t true
• Just in case one of your customers has a great new idea that your company can implement
• Just in case you can increase your brand awareness and get your company message out
• Just in case you can solve a customer support issue in a few minutes instead of a few hours

There are plenty of other “just in case” scenarios but it all comes down to whether or not it makes sense to invest in social media as your insurance policy for your brand.  I would definitely say so.  One of my favorite questions to ask companies is, “if you knew you would never make a penny (directly) while investing in social media, would you still do it?”  I ask this question just to understand how some people view social media.  You would be surprised to find out that  so far every time I have asked this question, the answer has still been “yes, we would.”

Social media is much more than a “just in case” strategy.  It’s an evolution of how your organization as a whole is going to operate and interact with customers.  However, if you’re just considering social media it might make sense to, at least, look at it in terms of an insurance policy for your brand – just in case that fire starts and you need to protect yourself.