Guest post: Reaping the social harvest

Made Social on 27 August 2010 | View Comments

In advance of Social Collective, we have been inviting select people to guest blog and join the SoCol debate, hopefully offering a fresh point of view. We have been asking a range of people to contribute, including those working in social, client side, techies, journos etc with a view of building a wider picture. Any questions raised during this process will be addressed during a panel at SoCol in September.

The latest in the series is from Kate Spiers, aka @wisdomlondon.

Reaping the social harvest
By Kate Spiers

Autumn is around the corner and that means harvest-time. What about the social harvest? Are we actually reaping what we, and others, sow?

After all, socially engaged, always-on communication pioneers that we are, what are we doing all of this social business for, if not to make some gains? So, after all our efforts, what kind of social harvest can we hope to reap?

This isn’t strictly about that elusive beast, social media ROI. This is more about the short-term and immediate benefits we can achieve through our social engagement. It’s about assessing what we have managed to cultivate so far, what’s ripe for the picking, and what can be nurtured and propagated for future harvests.

In a recent CommsChat on social media strategy and planning, it became clear that we all recognise the need for our social media approach to flex and respond to the realtime world as we go along, rather than setting off down a path with a far-off target and refusing to divert. Yes, we must always be clear about our long-term goals, but waiting too long for the endgame to play out is a dangerous tactic. Social media moves fast. We have to reap the goods as we go along.

Get distracted by the wrong measures of success and you risk wasting a glut of data, clues, trends and emotions that in fact, represent an amazingly fruitful crop from our social efforts. So how do we reap the social harvest? How do we know what’s ripe for the picking and when?

There is no set way. But consider the following for reaping your own social harvest and see what you can achieve:

Listening for clues, trends, intelligence – really think about what you’re listening for, be focused about it.
Harvest: Understanding, enhanced context, opportunities

Working your community – Consider who knows who, recognize the power of community, understand who’s on your side, who will support your cause, feed out your message and draw others in. Now work it.
Harvest: Stakeholders, cheerleaders, collaborators

Engagement – Every touchpoint has the power to knit the community a little closer. Reap the harvest by not only engaging but questioning, exploring and driving the quest for new ideas.
Harvest: Reputation, market position, critical mass for your cause

Wisdom – There’s a whole heap of good stuff out there that we can be
learning from every day – are you harvesting brilliant content, insight, ideas and great practical examples? We learn from the bad stuff too – observing mistakes, failure and bad practice not only inform, but provide a perfect opportunity to further our own thinking and question perceived wisdom
Harvest: Continual improvement, advanced thinking, trend spotting

None of this should be at odds with your overall objectives, measures for success, and social media ROI, no matter how you define it. It’s simply a question of recognising opportunities and benefits when they present themselves – and being sure to pick the juiciest ones while they’re at their ripest and best.

And maybe, in that fruitful harvest, you’ll find your ROI, right there.

About Kate Spiers

Kate Spiers is founder and director of Wisdom London, a creative communications consultancy. She is obsessive about engagement, connection and really, really compelling communications, no matter what the channel. Kate blogs at Wisdom London and tweets from @wisdomlondon.

View other posts in our guest blog series:

The web might be dead, so what does this mean for our clients… by Andrew Davison

“The Talk” by Max Tatton-Brown

Sshhhh; Social Media is a Feminine Model by Michelle Rodger

Social Media is Dead; Long Live Social CRM by Eric Swain

Power to your employees! But do brands have the guts? by Danny Whatmough

Helping clients better understand and engage in social media by Jonny Stark

The social media strategy series: Getting Buy In by Gemma Went

The tall and the long of it by John V Willshire

Social Media in the 21st Century – Deja Vu all over again by Paul Smith

The Secrets of Pitching Social Media by Paul Sutton

The social media strategy series: Is social media right for your business? by Gemma Went