As someone who grew up with the Internet and made it my career I can tell you, the era we’re in right now looks and smells oddly familiar. How? Well, back in my day* the Internet was just a thing, conceptual, new. No one understood it but everyone was talking about it. Consumers played with it. Brands tried to use it. The media talked about it endlessly. Like with most new things, objectives for success were often poorly defined, but money, gobs and gobs of money were thrown at it.

Strategies evolved that more or less correlated to success. People got smarter. The tools got cheaper and easier to use while the barriers to working the ‘net got smaller and easier to manage.

Inside of pharma, regulators and brand managers alike struggled to define how to use the Internet properly. Adoption happened slowly. Things seemed risky. Hands were wrung, and decisions delayed until others took the lead.

More case studies were needed.

Soon everyone was an Internet ‘expert’ and the scrum began. Every agency, freelancer, and Johnny-come-lately tried to get digital work. Innovation was sought at the expense of meaningful results. Things had to be new. They had to be shiny. And they had to have lots and lots of Flash.

Prices fell. The talent pool swelled. Expertise was defined by what you’d just launched. The noise level rose. Soon it became hard to tell what was great from what was working. Flashy was the new good.

Now, reread the previous paragraphs and replace the word ‘Internet” with the words “Social Media.” All of this has happened before.

Then, terrible things happened. The economy tanked. 9/11 occurred. The dot–conomy imploded. All those people dreaming of their Internet riches and piles of stock options e-lost all their virtual iDollars and ended up in thepoorhouse.com.

The party was over.

But that tragedy led to the rise to an aristocratic class of digital talent that had gained the specialized skills needed to survive while living through those volatile experiences and creating bigger and better tools. These are the survivors. These are the few. These are the Digerati.

Look around any major marketing meeting. Chances are there’s a late thirty something “smartest-person-in-the-room” that knows everything about anything digital you could want to talk about.

Strangely, I see the lessons of the past not informing the decisions of today. Social media is too new. It’s too different. It can’t be measured. Sound familiar? It should. All of this has happened before.

What I find most astonishing about this is that the very people who seem so flummoxed about how social can be applied to real business challenges are the very same people who should know better. They lived through the pain, and they fought the battles and struggled to be relevant. Yet, here we are again. Square one.

The same regulatory challenges that slowed the adoption of the Internet are playing themselves out all over again in this socially driven age. Remember when the biggest concern about creating a website was whether showing images of packaging  would somehow lead to fraud or a rise in fake products being sold? It may seem quaint now, but the fear was very real and very, very time consuming to navigate.

The challenges faced during the beginnings of the Internet age may be somewhat different than those of today, but the methods for success formulated during those times are just as relevant now.

So where does that leave us? Looking back at the past it occurs to me that 4 key lessons emerge. These may seem like “well, duh” tips, but I assure you, they are often ignored, usually at the expense of some really great ideas which never end up seeing the light of day.

1. Have a defined objective.

The seduction of new tools and technologies are that they generate opportunities to create some really “wow” stuff. That’s all well and good, but often the tried and true works better. Have an objective. Stick to the plan. Generating buzz can be a perfect objective for some programs but is definitely not a one size fits all outcome. Chase the shiny object only if it gets you somewhere. After all, it would be far more valuable to have 1,000 highly targeted, highly engaged patients than 10,000 outliers that will never ask for your product.

2. Understand your audience.

Your audience wants value. They want you to fill a need. If they’ve raised their hand by fanning your page, give them something in return. If your social strategy is merely to repurposed content that already exists elsewhere, chances are you will fail. People in social channels want content and experiences that are useful and in some way shape or form entertaining or interesting. How you write for social is going to be fundamentally different than how you write for a website. Giving them yet another BMI calculator isn’t going to get it done. Location based tracking tools for Alzheimer’s caregivers? Now you’re getting somewhere.

3. ROI matters.

More often than not, I read articles and blogs proclaiming that social media is too unique to measure, that it’s more important to experiment than worry about results. The problem with this mindset is that we all work in a results oriented culture, and showing how every dollar made an impact is very applicable to ensuring you have dollars available next year and the year after, let alone a job. Digital people use metrics like time on site, page views, opt ins, click through rates, likely to be referred, lifetime value and a whole host of other data points to justify the exorbitant money thrown at e-marketing tactics. If your agencies or consultants tell you that they can’t measure the impact of a social program, fire them. Do it now. There are plenty of smart people out there that can help you get the data you need.

4. Put your money where your brain is.

The proximity bias dictates that for the most part, people will go with what they know. I’ve seen brand after brand push money into failing programs simply because they are familiar and “seem” to work. Take a look at how much money you spend on display ads. What’s your click through rate? 2%? How many websites do you have? Do they need to be redesigned? Why? Amazon hasn’t changed its interface in 7 years, but it does reinvigorate it’s offering all the time. Other programs, especially in social may be able deliver far better results for far less money. Challenge assumptions. Push innovation. Demand value. Hard metrics are your friend.

The era of social is here, whether you like it or not. It’s an exciting time, one fraught with challenges, opportunities and adventures. But the lessons of the past should inform the decisions of today and tomorrow, not be forgotten. Mistakes should be learned from and strategies adopted. After all, all of this has happened before.

But it doesn’t have to happen again.

*Get off my lawn, you damn kids!

TRANSCRIPT–

WILLARD: Only 15 billion bucks. All right guys, can the power of social media change the world? Toyota would probably tell you it already has. The company is trying so hard to keep its stories about recalls and other problems under tight control. However, the Internet was abuzz with people tweeting, re-tweeting and Rebecca re-tweeting about Toyota’s problems.

So what can a company do when the information they want controlled is out of control through the people in the media outlets that they truly have no control of? Work with me, guys. Bill Evans is from Fleishman-Hillard Public Relations and is the senior VP of their Digital Strategy Division. I call it “revolutionomics”. Whether we’re protesting the Chavez in Venezuela or we’re being angry about Toyota trying to hide problems they can’t stop the revolution.

BILL EVANS, FLEISHMAN-HILLARD SVP, DIGITAL STRATEGY: That’s right, Cody. We’re talking about moms in minivans and cars and safety, I mean they strike very much at the core of what people value. And so I think what Toyota is learning almost the hard way is that people are going to come together, they’re going to share their experiences. They’re going to make purchasing decisions based very much on what they hear and what they feel and Toyota is really at a crisis at this point.

BOLLING: But this is the way of the future. I mean the information is out there now, whether it’s politics or business, Toyota recalls anything –

EVANS: Yes.

BOLLING: The social media has really brought information to everyone, right?

EVANS: Yes. I don’t think it is about necessarily bringing information to everyone. I think it is empowering people to bring information to each other, so the era of advertising really defining what a brand is or what a message is, is over. So you’re going to have a story that you want to tell, FOX is going to have a story it’s going to tell.

Toyota is going to have a story it’s going to tell. But people are going to come together and sort of measure the credibility about that and what they feel and align themselves to people that are alike themselves as well. And the Internet is really giving us a visibility into that we never had before.

DIAMOND: And so how does the company then — you’re a public relations expert.

EVANS: Yes.

DIAMOND: How does the company then contain this balloon that’s out there that’s just growing –

EVANS: Sure.

DIAMOND: — getting, you know, bigger and bigger until it pops with social media? They have basically no control over it.

EVANS: I think the — the way we counsel clients at Fleishman (ph) it’s not about controlling the story. It is about establishing credibility. I mean Toyota is learning that trust is a global commodity and it’s really not about controlling the spin anymore. I think people want them to come out, own the story on the situation. What did you know, when did you know it, be very transparent and tell us how they’re going to fix the problem. I think that will go a long way to establishing or re- establishing their reputation as a very trusted brand.

WILLARD: So it ends up being — it’s something we talk about on the show all the time. If America would focus on quality and not propaganda –

EVANS: That’s right.

WILLARD: — perhaps American companies would once again prosper.

EVANS: That’s correct. And I think you know Toyota could take a page from Ford back a number of years ago when they were having some issues. President of the company, Bill Ford, came out, took ownership of the problems, said here is what my plan is to fix this and this was before social media really became a prevalent channel.

I think Toyota if they were going to put a plan forward to the American people and people at large, say here’s how we’re moving forward. Start to show some of the stories of how people are engaging in success, what’s it’s been, how people are getting their cars fixed and really getting back to some core fundamental values and establishing trust that will go a long way.

BOLLING: Do they get it now? I mean you look at Toyota, OK, so they dropped the ball. They probably thought they were you know too big to fail.

EVANS: Yes.

BOLLING: Tiger Woods, it’s the same thing –

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Am I — it’s the same — it’s a good theory, right?

EVANS: Same theory. I think the idea that they’re somehow tone deaf to the opinion against them is the lesson here. I don’t know that they still quite got it. The fact that (INAUDIBLE) allegedly they knew about this problem for quite some time exacerbates that they didn’t have a plan ready to go and engage in people and really tell their story. I think Tiger Woods is a great example. He tried to shut the story down, control it, hope that it would go away. It actually just fueled the fire.

DIAMOND: Or maybe, on the same lines, Eric, that they were just too confident. They were too — like Tiger said, he thought was too good, he was entitled, and he — you know, the same with Toyota. They’re number one. They’re growing. They’re, you know — they’re Teflon.

EVANS: That’s right.

DIAMOND: But you know, they didn’t realize that, hey, you can be taken down, as well.

EVANS: Yes. And I think, again, the lesson here is not to be tone deaf. I mean, if you look at conversations, how people talk about your brand, your reputation of your brand, that’s much more valuable than your Q score with an ad campaign. So I think Toyota needs to really start to measure value of how their consumers perceive them, as opposed to how things test in advertisements.

BOLLING: That’s Bill Evans. We’re going to have to leave it there. Very nice tie…

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Nice tie.

DIAMOND: The power of Twitter!

BOLLING: All right, on tap, it’s the much anticipated return of the sizzlingest segment on TV, “Street Meat.” Back, baby. And in “The Diamond District,” President Obama looking to block health insurance companies from raising rates. Can his proposal work? Rebecca’s got the details when “Happy Hour” continues.

WILLARD: Are you guys on Twitter?

This question has come up quite a bit with our clients. Not to get too academic, but we’ve had to address some conceptual ideas to get them better prepared to make more informed decisions.

The good news is that we have been refining a point of view on this  that has been received very well by our clients and opened new opportunities for the team. The bad news is that it’s probably not the answer you are  looking for, but might help anyway. I’ll explain.

The question seems simple enough. Who should own social media? Organizations have oriented themselves to think about new tools and trends like any other mechanism within the organization. They think of them as channels. That social media is Facebook, or Twitter or whatever the next hot thing is. Channels became rigidly defined and pervasive because they required very specialized skills to cultivate and manage.

But social media isn’t a channel, it is a set of behaviors, behaviors that are made visible and viable by the technologies that enable them. It’s easy to understand this thinking, after all, it’s got the word media right in the name. But thinking of social as merely a channel limits the power of the behaviors at hand. They are not something you own, they are something to cooperate with. In essence, the specialized skill required for social media is people skills, which should be channel agnostic.

Ask any socially tuned person who owns social media and the majority of the time, you get the (correct) answer, which is “everyone does.” Yet organizations try to apply the channel mindset and force it into a specific function, when really there is no “right” answer.

To get clients out of this mindset we have started referring to social media as social business. After all, every aspect of the organization will need to begin to adopt socially enabled tools and policies to stay relevant with an ever increasingly savvy work force and customer base. HR will need to use these tools to recruit better talent, communications to drive reputation, marketing to drive behavioral shifts, etc.

By showing clients what the end point could look like, framing the starting point becomes easier. The question isn’t who owns social, but what parts of the organization are best suited to begin to drive the adoption of it. This may seem like an exercise in hair splitting, but the nuance is critically important, because it makes taking that first step appear less intimidating.

It’s understandable for a client to look for data or research that explains how other companies are handling this shift. It can be useful to analyze, but I find too often clients are unsure of how to move forward and are terrified to make the wrong decisions. In those cases, the data becomes a crutch and presents a false choice in and of itself. Clients in essence say “I can not choose, so I will choose what others have chosen.” Most of the research on the topic is anecdotal or biased in one way or another, and if the previous choices are incorrect, theirs will be as well. So how can we help clients more forward?

The answer, in most cases, is to ask a simpler question: What will best serve your customers in a way that will effectively move the bottom line? That answer will drive clients towards more effective adoption that demonstrates tangible results, making further adoption easier.

For some it may be that social should be adapted to provide tech support, for others as a sales channel or others recruiting tool., etc. The answer is going to be different for each because how you influence a decision or perception is as unique as the individuals you communicate with. The holy grail of marketing used to be 1 to 1 targeting. Somehow we forgot that social can do that.

This brings us back to the issue of adoption verses ownership. Drawing this distinction eases the process of moving forward, since the tasks look smaller and more manageable. Consensus is easier to build because you begin drawing a roadmap for everyone, rather than threatening existing ideologies. Clients leave the conversation feeling they may not need to rethink the org chart (yet), but rather need to modulate the tactics employed by each. Should they restructure? Maybe, maybe not, but the answer can only be effectively decided upon by looking at the whole business, not just the marketing or PR channels.