Commitment versus One and Done - Relationships

So I talked about how important executive level buy-in was for the social media leader's success in my last post. I know it sounds like a given, but I've worked in both environments. If you have buy-in, you have budget, you have executive sponsorship, you have the green light. Without buy-in, your social media initiative at best is a pilot program that might get traction but most likely won't.

The premise of this series is the CMO's commitment shift to more long-term customer lifetime value versus short-term spikes. Here's the four CMO shifts, I think need to happen for social media initiatives to get legs in the corporate world:

1) Peers/your team buy-in, hire leader
2) Relationships
3) Conversations vs campaigns
4) Long haul sentiment change (YOY) vs buzz spike (quarterly)

On the relationships front, it's the direct marketing lens that we are focusing on in social media...or more appropriately we aren't transaction based, point of sale based - we are looking holistically at the customer's experience with the brand and their life time value. So the shift is from a one and done transaction or get-the-sale-in-for-this-quarter-or-die mantra to a long-term customer relationship mentality. This means a focus on LTV metrics not just quarterly sales objectives.

I promise we'll dive into what that means from a social media metrics standpointin the last post of this series. Back to relationships...

Social media provides you ample opportunities to listen to your customers and potential customers through their journey with your brand and to engage with them through social media channels when it makes sense. Relationships take back and forth dialogue - there needs to be give and take or there's really no connection nor skin in the game.

Take advantage of the social sphere to listen and course correct along the way through conversation pulse analysis. Your customers will take note of your "big ears" and will show their appreciation through brand loyalty.

Next up...conversations vs campaigns.