Well, Yes I have a problem.

I discuss Social Media with some of the established brains in the domain in India and have had discussions with Social Media thinkers sitting thousands of miles across the seven seas.

And now I do have a problem!

Before I put my problem down, let me put some questions for you to ponder upon:

• Almost every business today needs to reach out and the Internet becomes one of the best mediums. But does every business have the same objective in terms of (Branding, Outreach, Lead generation) etc.?
• Is it necessary that a solution which has worked for an IT company (as an example) would fit great for a BPO?
• Is it necessary that YOU as an Online marketing company would be able to understand everything from a product business to an IT to a BPO to a Chocolate product company?
• Is marketing universal and do the same rules apply for all on Social Media?

Well, now let me put forth my problem!

One of the biggest lacking points that I see with online marketing/ social media companies today is lack of good human resources. In my experience, you need three core and basic qualities to be even thinking of creating social media strategies for a business (client). These are:

1. Solid understanding of Business/ Products/ Services/ Industry
2. Solid understanding of the consumer who consume these products/ services online
3. Solid understanding of marketing

My experience of the industry says that majority of Social Media companies, talk about all the major tools and all the great jargons, but what they dont understand is how to customize a solution for the client. Each business (may be from the similar domain) will have a different set of problem statements to answer. Each business will have different objectives to achieve.

When so much is different, how can you just go along with jargons and pitch the same solution to each client?

I have interacted with many a Social Media people who if spoken to, would not have the required level of knowledge/ understanding of the product/ industry/ consumer behavior they are pitching to, but will keep circling around their choice of words which are: branding, positioning and lead generation (amongst the many others)

To scale up as a Social Media company – My way would be

The human resources that I recruit would surely have these three above mentioned qualities. Also, since time is an essential factor in the Internet business, I as a small company cannot afford to keep training my employees and wait for them to grasp business and start delivering. Hence what I need to focus on is getting the right people on board who take the ownership of work and understand the criticality of client delivery and execution.

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