The Temple of Apollo at Delphi was where the ancient Greeks sought the wisdom of the oracles (the McKinsey consultants of their day). At the entrance to the Delphic temple were two wall inscriptions (the free whitepapers of their day) that have a lot of relevance for social media marketing strategy:
– "Know thyself"
and
– "Nothing to excess".
Whilst these two maxims are pretty useful advice for just about everything, they're a good starting point for planning corporate social media.
You don't want to approach a social media plan like a three-year-old approaches birthday cake. For example, if you're considering a location-based strategy, think carefully about your organisational objectives and resources before jumping into, say, Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, Brightkite, Burbn, CauseWorld, Hot Potato, Plancast, and, while you're at it, a Foodspotting presence.
The experience of Second Life (SL) is a good example. A lot of brand managers made big investments in building and maintaining SL presences, but the good publicity brands initially received when joining SL is giving way to an acceptance that it's a niche network with relatively few active users.
These brand managers are learning the hard way that dropping a social media platform is not like killing an ad campaign; even niche platforms have their own tribes of passionate users. In an article in The Age about BigPond's decision to shut down its SL presence and pull the plug on its unmetered usage, one SL user said, "This is totally discrimination against the housebound, the disabled, the depressed, the gamers." For BigPond, it was simply a business decision. The costs exceeded the value.
Know thyself and nothing to excess. It isn't easy to practice when, as a marketer, you want to be a first mover and try new things. But long-term success in social media hinges on being true to your commitments – and making the right commitments in the first place. The Greeks figured this out a long time ago, even if the country's current cash-strapped residents are still thinking (and no doubt Tweeting) about getting it right.