Knowledge@Wharton Mobile Social Media in the C-Suite: Listening, Learning and Creating a Strategy from the Top Down provides an insightful look at how far strategic social media has come.  Big business is going beyond “branding” to engagement and customer service through social media.

This indicates that all businesses who choose social media as a means of marketing, branding and customer engagement really must start with a strong strategy.  The interview reveals why social media strategy must come from the top. Eric Bradlow explains why Social Media Leadership: How to Get off the Bench and into the Game, author Michael F. Lewis  is so important in today’s social media labryinth.

Bradlow specifies:

Here’s why: A lot of companies are doing a lot of listening, but their social media strategy is siloed into one aspect of their business. What you really need is the CEO perspective because … it’s not just that every business is affected, but every part of your business is affected. And so listening is wonderful. That’s what I’d frame as one of those “nice to know” things. You can spend a lot of money, but make no money, on nice-to-know things. It’s integrating social media into your business. And that’s why having someone that’s a social media expert write a book, those are great. But having a CEO write a book about social media and about the organizational structure and the impact — it’s a totally different perspective and one that’s really not out there.

I agree that the strategy needs to be corporate wide. In small businesses that is easy, everyone still has the same business pulse.  In larger companies it really must be a top down investment and guidance that can be consistently and persistently executed.

I’m definitely going to take a look at the book and add more knowledge to my own strategic social media archive.

Constance Ard October 14, 2011