Industry Research about the Social Strategist.

Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang)  of the Altimeter Group just published a research report last week.  You should read it. I’d like to share with you why I say so, and what you can learn from this.  When you are finished reading this blog post, read the report, then come back and share your thoughts below.

Some of the report’s take-aways:

• There is a new role in many companies, primarily but not exclusively within marketing, which is responsible for social business strategy –> e.g. managing the way the company uses social media channels in some formal and useful way.  The report examines this role, what companies are looking for when hiring for this role, and what current practitioners do within this role.
• There is a discrepancy between the expectations that some have for the impact social strategy could have on a company and the way companies invest in the infrastructure needed to achieve these expectations.  This discrepancy creates an inflection point where the social strategist faces the challenge to scale or suffer.  There is also an internal resistance that will try to subvert this effort, another factor influencing the inflection point.
• The report offers senior management many helpful tips to consider when hiring, organizing, and managing their social strategy program.  These tips come straight from the trenches and the experts — so take note and read this carefully.  It’s feedback to the executives, from the voice of experience.

Methodology Counts:

I read a lot about Social Business Strategy from books and blogs.  There are many smart people saying lots of things about “social” and business.  Some are very hopeful — insisting that we are at the verge of a positive cultural revolution.  Some are very critical — insisting everything hyped is really just a crock [of &!#*].  Since you want to cut through the noise, you have to read real honest research based on data. And that’s what you are getting when you read this report.

Elements of good research:

• Start with  interesting questions that evoke insight by teasing apart two sides of the same element.  For example — What skills do social strategists say they have on their LinkedIn profiles vs. What skills do job postings say they need when looking for social strategists?
• Reach out to learn from others.  Researchers start with hypotheses  — but a good researcher suspends the conclusion to first learn from the data.  This report contains the input of many, most of whom are in the trenches, each with differing perspectives.   This is what distinguishes research from blogging; an analyst from a blogger.
• Conclude with insight that takes the ideas transforms them into actions.  Good research concludes with something more than a restatement of data and less than a wild-guess of what you hope the results might mean.  Its takes the data and extends the lesson to the next logical step.

This report is a fantastic example of these elements.  It collects quantitative data, qualitative data, and the analysis of subject-matter experts to present you with something valuable.   It is not the final word on this topic; it could be extended by a parallel research project focusing in Europe, or deeper research in a market segment (e.g. online retail brands vs. service companies).

Where else can you apply these ideas?

If you are involved in Social Media analysis or strategy for large brands, you have to read this report, period.  But what about if you are not the CMO of a major brand, what’s in it for you?  Here’s my take:

• You can apply the model of the “Two Career Paths” in many other fields that are relatively new, important, but underfunded.  The pattern is worth understanding.  I find many other roles that have a similar profile.  The combination of scarce resources, uninformed expectations, and hype will lead many <foo> strategist to follow a similar career challenge.  (Replace <foo> with quality, architecture, Open Source, innovation, process, agile, or any other strategy-ish roles that gained some popularity over the years).
• Strategist is just a fancy title for “project manager who works across organizational silos”. This means you need (to have/hire) both basic project management skills, as well as advanced organization-navigation skills.  Otherwise you’ll be cleaning up other people’s messes along with your own.  Corollary: Strategist does not mean”‘someone who blogs well, is a great speaker at barcamps, and repeats what other people say.”
• Beware of the myth that “everyone will help out”.  Jeremiah notes an interesting contrast — in the 90′s companies were all over the rollout of ERP systems with their army of consultants.  Social marketing promises similar game-changing effects to the company — but where’s the army?  I think some expect that people will know how to help out since “they already know how to use Facebook anyway” (I’m quoting someone who said this to me last week — oy!).  So you don’t need an army, since you already have one.  The challenge becomes one of scaling consistent practices.  I say, beware of illusions.  Social strategy is not “doing facebook for a living”.

A side note:

This report is Open Research.  You don’t have to pay $2000 to get a copy of it, or pay 10 times more than that to subscribe to a research service.  It’s free to read and share (with attribution to Altimeter, of course).  This trend must be a top of mind issue for the analyst firms who rely upon a pay-to-read model.  It does not spell their doom, but does threaten their revenue stream and competitive offering.  In this case, the free report is better than most of the stuff you pay for (and I assure you, I know something about this).  What this means:  Analysts firms should consider hiring their own Social Strategist too (some do/did), and understand how to keep them and leverage them successfully.  Ironically, Altimeter’s report provides them with good insight they could learn from and use.

Share/Save