Doing Social Media for your .com or .org without a purpose statement is like sitting down to write a paper without a thesis statement.
It’s back to Eighth Grade
My high school English teacher harped on the necessity of a thesis statement as the foundation for a good paper, whether that was a one page book report or a ten page research paper. He would say over and over again that every paragraph and topic sentence of the paper must be connected logically to the thesis statement of that paper.
Purpose > Action > Success
Success never precedes action. Action should never precede purpose. Sustained and measurable success (is there any other kind?!) never occur without initial purpose and corresponding action steps.
It’s a little rejuvenating to hear of the pioneer that dropped out of college to start a business with his best friend and they became millionaires. That’s Bill Gates, by the way. Reality check: You’re not Bill Gates. While it’s inspiring to hear a story like that, those stories aren’t meant to be normative examples of how business success occurs.
Laying the Proper Foundation
Why do you want to incorporate Social Media into your .com or .org? You say you want to connect with your audience? Bravo! Bravo! <cue applause> That’s like saying you want to get an “A” on that paper you just sat down to write. Bravo!
You want to connect with your audience. That’s a GOAL. Not a purpose statement. Have you considered how “connecting” happens? Have you observed how others have had success “connecting” with you? It doesn’t just happen. The more buzz words we use, the more foggy the whole thing becomes. You can talk about campaigns, movements, community, going green, and connecting till your blue (or green) in the face, but you won’t have success without following the PURPOSE > ACTION > SUCCESS paradigm.
Next Steps?
Don’t know where to go from here? Here are some steps:
- Re-establish communication with your users. Love them. Find out what they’re passionate about. What gets them excited and makes them talk?
- Discover how you can contribute to user-driven feedback/communication internally. You could hire or promote an existing worker to be a Community Builder for your .com or .org. People can’t “connect” with a website. You “connect” to a person or group of people. A group of “vitally-connected” people is a community. This may be the biggest misunderstanding of Social Media.
- Don’t create Social Media accounts before you establish a PURPOSE statement for the Social Media avenues and ACTION steps to fulfill that purpose statement. Don’t expect SUCCESS without following that paradigm. It won’t happen.
