We were in a pitch earlier this week with a name-brand company.  High pressure.  After the dog-and-pony part of the meeting, in the afterglow as we were saying our good-byes, we got some candid feedback from one of the prospective client contacts.  She said:

“This presentation was different than the others we’ve been hearing.  Yes, it’s true that we talked a lot about Social Media, but you guys didn’t break out every shiny marble.  It felt more … organic.”

I smiled. That was good to hear.  “That’s because we didn’t come here to talk about Social Media for Social Media’s sake,” I said.  “We came to talk about engagement for engagement’s sake.”

When evaluating a prospective partner’s Social Media expertise, or when doing your own planning, I advise keeping Forrester Research’s POST methodology in mind.  POST stands for People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology.

Put the people first: who are they, where do they hang out, what do they care about, what do they avoid?

Once you know these fundamental attributes of your audiences, the obvious parts of the program (the where, when, why) readily present themselves and all that’s left is a burst of creativity to make the ideas for engagement (the how) really sticky, impactful and fun.

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