An awful lot has changed in the past year with regard to Social Media.  More and more companies are beginning to talk about using social media for their B-to-C and B-to-B business.  Many experienced Marketing Managers are now facing a dilemma. 

The Dilemma

Picture a well qualified military general in 1899. He understand the battlefield; the tools and the tactics needed to win the war. Now put him in a time machine and transport that General forward to 1920 and put him in command.  When his subordinates start talking to him about "air power" it confounds him. He has seen these 'flying machines" (we'll call these "Twitter") but doesn't understand what they are, nor does he understand what they can do.  So when the discussion moves to the benefits and drawbacks of sea based landing strips, commonly referred to as aircraft carriers (let's call these "Hootsuite") he starts to base his decisions on his understanding of the the great battleships and their overarching importance (Let's call these "Press Releases")  And therein lies the beginning of the dilemma: It's hard for the experienced general, and today's seasoned marketing executive, to understand the capabilities of the new weapons at their disposal because they did not come up through the ranks using them, nor have they been exposed over the past 21 years to what transpired. Remember, our general was dropped into 1920 via a time machine.  That was the situation in October 2010.

Flash Forward to 2011

Let's take our same general from 1899 and now drop him into 1949. When we talk about sub sonic jets and helicopters being utilized in the battlespace our general really starts to feel out of place.  If he was somewhat defensive in 1920, now in 1949, he's fully threatened by the technology. So here we are in 2011. The rampant pace of change for those marketing managers who haven't dipped their toes into Social Media is now almost overwhelming: There's a new language that talks about RT's, @Mentions, Likes, Aggregators, Analytics, HTML5, and YouTube. 

What to do, What to do?

There is no simple solution. Our general is going to have to take some time and use the new weapons himself. He's going to need to witness and observe how they can be used in the battlespace. There isn't going to be any shortcuts.  If marketing managers today want to 'manage' Social Media they first have to have at least a rudimentary understanding of what the tools do. Unlike in 1981 when the fax machine changed communication or in 94-95 when email started to be used as a business tool, in 2011 we have several technologies and communication tools all hitting at the same time and driving communication forward. And, at the same time, feeding innovation by feeding off of each other's new capabilities. The new battlespace is changing and dynamic with mass influxes of new capabilities daily.

Alternatives

There seems to be three ways that marketing managers are tackling Social Media

1. Acceptance - "I need to learn it NOW, listen, participate and learn!" Our 1899 General: "I want to fly that plane, I want to drive that tank"
2. Grudging Acceptance - "OMG, this is stupid, but everyone's doing it so I better get on board, but that doesn't mean that I can't talk down to these people in the "know" cause I know more than them anyway" Our 1899 general: "I want big guns on the center of that carrier deck, we need a place for the horses to pull those tanks"
3. Denial - "I just don't want to deal with it. I don't care what some athlete is having for dinner and if I'm not there then I don't have to hear all the complaints" Our 1899 general: "Sink that aircraft carrier thing and get rid of all those big metal tanks, I don't know what they are and I don't have time to learn about them"

I recently met one of the folks in the denial phase.  The organization had had someone create a Facebook Page for them and actually did a really good job. However, that person left the company and it was decided that since no one really knew how to use it they would not spend any money to learn.  In fact, to eliminate the problem of people complaining that no one was responding to their questions, they decided to just delete the entire Facebook Page completely with all of their 2,000+ followers.

So which of these categories do you fall into? Do you know anyone who fits one of them?