The question that comes BEFORE social media. Who are you and what do you want to do?

Anti-Social Media?
Uploaded by Intersection Consulting on 23 Apr 09, 6.48PM BST.

I don’t know why but as comms people we frequently get over-excited by the latest shiny thing. In that respect I think we are a little bit like academic researchers – go crazy over something and think it has an application absolutely everywhere.

These days it’s social media. We just stick it into whatever comms strategy comes to mind as if the awesomeness of twitter and facebook (which are either way disputable) is enough to elevate a campaign and make it relevant. Which is of course ridiculous.

I seem to recall that the same thing was happening a few years ago when it came to campaign micro sites and website design with heat maps and eye-tracking technology. The whole world went mad over trials that were expensive, thorough and in some cases completely unnecessary.

There is a question that comes before social media. There is a question that comes before design. There is a questions that comes before heat maps.

There is a question of substance that comes before appearance.

Who are you and what do you want to do?

This question addresses the two fundamental aspects of an online digital strategy. Your identity and your goals.
Without them we can give you all the shiny tools in the world. And you will – sadly – still be struggling to make sense.

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Following a database meltdown (long live the server move processes) this post and the comments were uploaded again manually.