January 13, 2011

Do You Feel Like An Alien?

We don't have time.

I was in a client’s office this week and they gave me a tour of the place and introduced me to the rest of the team. Nice, warm, friendly people all made me feel at home. I was introduced as the guy “here to help with the social media stuff”. It’s not all I do but in this case it was a workshop to explain tools, examine what they’re doing, find ways to better integrate all their efforts and most importantly ensure internal communication improves. That work continues.

I felt a bit like an alien, a strange being that was coming in with stuff that was foreign to most. My direct contact is doing a great job and it was as if she had found another from her planet to help explain it to the rest of the team. Love this client, love her team. They want to understand what they don’t understand. Perfect!

Does this sound familiar?

You seem to be the only one jumping up and down to embrace the power of the digital channels yet some look at you with confusion, claim there is no time for all this stuff and think Facebook is just a way to keep in touch with their college friends?

Everyone seems to have an opinion of the social web yet the organization has yet to embrace the full power of an integrated solution to improve communication and drive revenue. If you spend too much time on Twitter or Quora you are left with the impression that “everyone” gets this stuff. They do not. We are still in the early stages.

We're way behind!

You can read spaces such as Mashable, Wired, Gigaom or Business Insider and it appears you are in the dark ages if your organization is not completely firing on all social networking channels. Don’t worry, global companies are still working on it and there is no one answer.

If we take a campaign approach tied to return on investment of one YouTube video or a single blog post as the metric to social media success, we still have a lot of work to do.

What’s your story?

knealemann | email | How can I help?

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