Need for Strategists, Not Tactical Wizards

Editor’s Note: The Twitter button counter is malfunctioning on this post.

I write a lot about social media. How it is important. How it is changing the communications field in fascinating—but sometimes wacky—ways.

Today, I am going to step back a bit. While social media represents a massive shift in the way we communicate and inspire action, it is not a magic bullet that enables you to ignore timeless communications principles.

Like any other form of communication, it needs to be integrated into a coherent strategy. For communications practitioners, that means a communications plan of some kind.

1. What do you want to accomplish? What are your goals and objectives?
2. Who are your target audiences? What do you want them to do once they have received your message?
3. What strategies will you use to reach your objectives? What will be your communications mix (i.e., public relations, advertising, promotion, and direct marketing)? What research will you use to inform your decisions?
4. How will you measure results? How will you know if you achieved your objectives?
5. What will your plan cost to implement?

If your focus is advertising, you might include additional text on the competitive climate you or your client is operating in, tone and style, and your principal idea (consumer benefit). If you are in marketing, you might focus additional text on timing; your or your client’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; or the four Ps of product, promotion, placement, and price. If you are in public relations, you might concentrate on detailing tactics and communications channels that flow out of your strategies. Or if you are in public communications, you might focus heavily on generating the community support your audience needs to overcome barriers stifling change.

The bottom line, however, is that a sound strategy is the glue holding any successful communications plan together. Not social media know how. Not tactical wizardry.

That is true today. It was true yesterday, and it will be true tomorrow. Now matter how tools and models of influence change.

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