Is Your Strategic Lens Clear?

I saw an article yesterday in MediaPost by David Berkowitz that led me to the 360i Social Marketing Playbook. I was attracted by the strategic approach David described and immediately downloaded it.

The chapter on the “strategic lens” alone was worth it. The 56-page report (download from this page) is well worth reading. It covers the strategic waterfront from preparing to engage in social media marketing to metrics for measuring success and includes an introduction by Randall Rothenberg and another interesting perspective on the future of marketing by Jeremiah Owyang.

The strategic lens is especially relevant because it focuses the organization on its strategic needs and abilities. That’s important, because I believe many firms are still in the early “we’ve got to have a Facebook page” absence of objectives and overarching strategy. In his article David points out that 360i already had considerable expertise in the social arena and used the Social Marketing Playbook to advance their corporate strategy. That’s walking the walk! That would also mean that they had learned the particular etiquette of the social media. And finally, the importance of providing value to customers can’t be overstated, given the number of choices customers have today.
This publication should be required reading for all social marketers. Their ending checklist is good, and gives a sense of the topics covered, but the entire publication should be a “read and heed” for all of us!