Marketing and PR are invaluable to any company. They help you tell the story, get the word out and draw attention to your company, product, service and brand.
What they don’t do, what they can’t do – and what they shouldn’t attempt to do is deliver on it.
Marketing and PR all all about say. They define expectations – and you’d better be prepared to deliver on them. Operations (product management, product development, customer service and support, finance, etc) are all about do. And what they do defines your company, product, service and brand in powerful ways – ways no amount of marketing and PR spend can overcome.
This is why I’m so convinced that we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the value of Social Media for business. We’ve only talked about Marketing and PR. We’ve focused entirely on say – and ignored do.
What social media does is erode the wall between say and do. It allows your market’s voice to to be heard – and guess what… they only care about what you do. And the bigger the gap between say and do (expectations and delivery) the more strident the voices of the market become.
To put it simply – narrow say/do gap equals promoters; broad say/do gap equals detractors.
So before you make your 2010 budgets and slot your social media spend entirely in marketing and PR ask yourself one simple question – are you broadening or narrowing the say/do gap?