With regard to Graeme’s note above above getting the right person to implement the strategy on a daily basis I believe that person in fact needs to be the client.

It is therefore important for the social media strategist to include training and mentoring rather than simply taking over the process for a client. Sure their skills are ‘the big picture strategy’ but everyday conversations and listening needs to occur by the client for an authentic/real dialogue to occur.

Cheers

Critical to the success of any social media strategy is the TYPE of person you appoint to implement it on a daily basis. Above all else, this person needs to have a FEEL for it; they need to be more of an artist than an engineer.

Try this metaphor for size: when you think of ‘social media’, think of ‘jazz’. In particular, think of improvised jazz. Yes, there’s some structure, and some rules may be followed, but at its very heart is the ability to make it up as you go along.

The best jazz musicians have a ‘feel’ for what works; they aren’t robots enslaved by ‘methodology’. The way they play their instrument is guided by their mood … by the mood of the audience … by the atmosphere. What actually happens on that very night, in that very room, can’t be predicted. And can’t be controlled.

So it is with social media. Whoever executes your social media strategy, day to day, should have more in common with a jazz muso than a classical pianist. Both highly talented, agreed, but send the classical guy to work in Accounts.

Running an effective social media campaign is about ‘living in the moment’ … ‘going with the flow’ … ‘being in the zone’. Why? Because the fans fiddling with Facebook, and the tweeps tweeting on Twitter are all doing just that. It’s all about NOW.

Like the mood of the jazz room, trends are transient, fads are fleeting, and only the player with the gift of intuition can ‘play to the crowd’. Heard of ‘Susan Boyle’? ‘Fair shake of the sauce bottle’? ‘Utegate’? In the nanosecond world of social media, such trends skyrocket then crash and burn, while the mainstream media is still stammering, ‘What happened?’

When you’re choosing someone to make your social media campaign happen on a daily basis, if they have a clarinet in their hand, give them the job. If not, ask them if they know the meaning of ‘bohemian’ or ‘zeitgeist’. If they don’t, wish them well and shout, ‘Next!’

I can’t improvise with a saxophone; I just do it with comedy at product launches and other corporate events. But there’s always that same magic … that same warmth … when moods and ideas connect. Jokes … jazz … whatever ignites the right connections between brands and people. That’s what you’re after. You can’t hold it in your hand … you can’t exactly plan for it … you can’t really measure it. But by God you know when it’s there.

Happy improvising.