As anyone who's ever worked for Nike will tell you, you can take the person out of Nike but you can't take Nike out of the person. So I apologise for the title of this post, but every now and then I do have a 'Nike moment', even though it's over 10 years since I left.
At the beginning of each new year it's exciting to see what everyone's talking about, and this year there seem to be two dominant themes - economic gloom and social media. Are the two related? I think so - but that's a subject for another post.
What fascinates me currently is the vast number of articles and blog posts on the subject of how to 'do' social media. Don't get me wrong - I read them as avidly as anyone. And I wholeheartedly agree that in order to 'get' the social web you have to take part in it, experience it, have a go at least.
Blogs such as Mashable provide authoritative insights into social media and now there are specialist blogs for Twitter, such as Twitip. Expert commentators such as Chris Brogan, Maki, Brian Solis and others discuss social media strategy and tactics. Bloggers such as Caroline Middlebrook document their own efforts at blogging for business and share their results along the way. And then there are the books. Sam McArthur gave me Debbie Weil's Corporate Blogging Book for Christmas - choc full of 'how to' information.
The Interactive Insights Group recently put together this amazing list of best articles and blog posts on the subject of social media from the last year. I'm tempted to take a whole day off (or two), religiously work my way through this list and read every article.
But ... there's also the here-and-now. Few of my clients are ready to put social media at the centre of their marketing efforts. Staying up on trends is important, but as Jason Baer warns us, social media isn't the be-all and end-all. For many it's not even on the radar.
Let's not forget that marketers are still soclal media beginners. My feeling is that we need to get stuck in, yes, but we also need to step back and spend some time thinking about the big picture. Not just 'how do you get more followers on Twitter' or 'how can you promote your business on Facebook' but also what's the role of social media in the wider business context. I'm already looking forward to January 2010 and seeing how far we've progressed!
