Why is a great question, do you not think?  I like why.  I explore why.  I believe that to understand the behaviour is to harness the behaviour effectively.  This is especially true in social media. 

The problem with social media is that not many people explore the why, the behavioural aspect.  How, what, where and when are more commonly explored.  How should I approach social media?  What content should I post?  Where should I post the content?  When should I post the content?

In general and for business social media has been popularised by our behaviours and interactions, as individuals.  They hype has been created because we use social media to communicate, for information search, for pleasure, to promote our personals brands, and now to friend brands and for business.

It makes sense to understand the behaviours, the why.  It is the behaviours that got us here in the first place.  I believe that by understanding they why we can harness the how, where, what and when more effectively. 

Think back to when you were a child, what was the question you asked the most?  Why?  Granted it can be terribly annoying when children get to the why stage but that is how they learn.  I think if we take a step back and explore the why, as we did as children, we can not only better understand the social media phenomenon but where our professional social media strategies can add value and not just add more noise.

I’ve been researching social media for a long time now and I have noticed more steps to properly integrate social media into business.  I’ve been playing around with this blog for a couple of week and today I noticed Brian Friedman’s blog ‘Build Your Social Media Schedule for 2012’ which begins with questioning why?  I love this.  I’m pleased to see I’m not the only person questioning why and the run of comments suggest that why gradually being explored in the social media community.

However I’m still hearing about ‘experts’ advising clients to pursue social media because they can’t afford not to be, that’s where there customers are… You know the kind of thing I’m talking about!  I definitely see a difference between social media in Scotland and even London to over to the States.  Maybe this is not so frequent where you are but it is still a massive issue here.

Every business is unique.  The social media strategy and integration should be bespoke to that business.  The why question reaches to that uniqueness and then sets about a series of questioning to further drill down into how the company or brand can develop their unique voice and add value to their current offerings. 

For example…

• Why do you want to purse a social media strategy?
• Why are we integrating a social media strategy?
• Why are we using this specific media?
• Why are we not considering other media?
• Why are we posting this particular content?
• Why would/do our customers want to engage with us?
• Why would a particular person/department be responsible for social media?

Don’t fall into the trap of copying your competitors.  Be aware of what they are doing but you don’t know how strategically they have developed their social media plan. 

The other questions of how, where and when can be answered with understanding the why.  Start with why, do some research and be realistic with objectives. 

People are often disappointed with the rate of their social media success but if they understood the why of social media perhaps they could be more realistic about expectations.  Next time you use a social media consultant or agency ask them why you should be pursuing a social media strategy, why you are in those particular media… Just ask why.  If they cannot answer the question to your satisfaction or seem perplexed run a mile, they are not the ‘experts’ you think they are.