What Produces Social Media Results?

Businesses and individuals are all seeking innovative ways to leverage social media for currency, whether actual revenue or goodwill. They see social media as a robust way to add reach and richness to their marketing efforts; however, what is less obvious is how to do it?

How to effectively apply social technology to reach specific markets of conversations and subsequently create the exchange has become the Holy Grail of social media as a process.

For companies to arrive at a more competitive, more advantageous position the route begins by acquiring essential knowledge leading to innovative practices that result in conversational currency. To arrive at your destination you first need to construct a map: A series of initiatives and actions aimed at accelerating your progress towards achieving our ultimate goal. Essential knowledge must first be acquired and translated into a strategic plan that will allow you to set the proper course for your journey.

Most businesses are more focused on the cost and results than gaining an understanding of the process of social media. But in order to effectively leverage social media to produce the intended results it is vitally important to “learn” the art and science of conversations in order to effectively apply the methods of creating conversational currency. Think of this investment in education as a “knowledge transfer process” that may initially require time and money to accomplish but the value it creates far exceeds the cost. The results of effectively enabling individuals and businesses to gain from this transfer of knowledge ultimately will be reflected in the future through significant savings in time and effort. In other words, an investment in essential knowledge leads directly to an increase in overall productivity. Finding the Holy Grail of conversational currency requires safe passage through the hallowed grounds of essential knowledge. No matter what your learning to leverage and give by actively participating in conversations with your markets, it is knowledge that fuels the result.

Each day more businesses are awakening to the power of the social web and there is one thing separating the successful from the unsuccessful: Knowledge. Without knowledge a business can quickly get lost in the “sea of social technology” losing precious time doing unproductive activities without achieving a desired result. Money is a derivative of knowledge. The lack of knowledge is a derivative of cost.

Social Media Funnels Knowledge

The landscape of social media is changing daily. The speed of change creates new dynamics, new knowledge and disruption for those that don’t “know”. Keeping track of these changes requires an investment in time and the application of knowledge. Time cost money. Without gaining the required knowledge you lose time and productivity. Gaining and internalizing “knowledge” is the means for gaining time and improving productivity. Leveraging time and productivity is what produces results.

An individual or business can save time and money by using “knowledge resources”. A knowledge resource is someone or an organization that can either transfer the knowledge of “how to create results from social media” to your internal resources. The other alternative is to partner with knowledge resources that can facilitate your pursuit of social currency on your behalf. However allowing an outside knowledge resource to facilitate the required actions for you means you never internalize or own the knowledge. So, which is better then to outsource or to own?

Ownership enables you to become self sufficient. Outsourcing makes you co-dependent. Co-dependency is problematic: It results in a dysfunctional enterprise. In order to run a functional business you must learn to gain, leverage, create and own knowledge. Using social media to achieve results is a paradigm shift for all of us. Understanding that social media functions as a vast reservoir of information about your markets, your customers, your employees is important. Understanding how to funnel and filter that information into essential knowledge is the key to your success. Monitoring the transitions yet to come is crucial to meeting the challenges these sea changes threaten to have upon your business.

The good news is that you can learn how to ride the wave rather than drown. By valuing the process of learning you can discover innovative ways to generate conversational currency. An old proverb teaches that people perish due to a lack of knowledge. Your company can either prosper or perish. What produces results? Knowledge. Got it? No, then get it! The choice is yours.

What say you?