by Tom Webster on October 12, 2009

I’m not a social media strategist–I’m a researcher. I actually don’t know very many social media strategists. That’s not a knock on the growing number of social media marketing consultants out there–it’s more a recognition of the limits of their practice. For example, last week I watched a panel at the Inbound Marketing Summit (IMS09) discuss getting past the “social media hype.” The panelists (Brian Solis, Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Paul Gillin and CC Chapman) were all asked to give a closing thought for companies seeking to adopt or enhance a social media presence. For the most part, the responses were fairly tactical in nature–not wrong, mind you, just tactical. “Be Human.” “Be Helpful.” “Engage in conversations.” People dealing with people at the sharp end of the stick. Hard to dispute any of that–but that’s all the how. The why is a deeper strategic issue, and one that transcends the marketing department. More on that in a bit.