Brands Need to Use Social Media Strategically, Not Get Advice from Gurus by DAM News Staff

February 2, 2011

Brands Need to Use Social Media Strategically, Not Get Advice from Gurus | Futurelab Guest Post by: Richard Dalke

2011 is the year of thesocial media backlash. Well, apparently. Whether or not you believe this, there’s one thing that’s certainly true: this is the year when things will change forsocial media agencies and for brands.

Brands Need to Use Social Media Strategically, Not Get Advice from Gurus 3

A quote in a recent article by Tim Sanders really got me thinking about social media strategy. Some of the language used in the article is intended to provoke a response, but the content of the blog post, in essence, is excellent.

The article was based on a quote by Chris Kirubi, Chairman of Coca Cola Nairobi:

“You don’t need a social media strategy – You need a brand strategy that leverages social media. Don’t get off the brand strategy just because there’s a new communication channel; that’s how you lose the plot as a brand. Technology is the tail, not the dog.”

As you can probably imagine, this led to a lot of “social media consultants” backing into a corner or pulling together overly verbose, nonsensical reasoning to justify their existence. Instead, what they should have focused on is that everything, including social media, comes back to the company aims, brand strategy and more importantly business value.

Continues @http://www.futurelab.net