Social McSuccess

I read a recent comparison to my friends at McDonalds this week which was very good.  And it was all about:

• Focus.
• Distinctiveness.
• Agility.

In summary it said the following.

Focus. The whole McD organisation is focused on one thing; "Keeping their eyes on the fries!"

Distinctiveness.  They target their offer on customers who will react positively and largely ignore those who are not interested.

Agility.  They continue to refine their offer to suit their core market such as better quality coffee and sandwiches, but still get 80% of their business from burgers.

Basically, McDonalds do well in all three areas which is why they do so well.  I think we can learn a lot from the above comments when considering social media. 

Focus.  There are already so many companies that claim to be social media experts, as well as creative, search, brand experts.  Let them be all these things.  Real focused companies will be where the big boys go.  And the market will of course niche out even within the niche.  For example, our focus is social media as part of an internal talent management platform to start with.  Some will be LMS focused.  Others eCommerce etc.

Distinctiveness.  There are still a lot of organisations who really don't care or get how it can help their business perform better or, even start to understand it.  They can be largely ignored for there will be enough who do.

Agility.  The market is still evolving so it will be interesting to see how it shakes out over the next year or so.  Ning for example are pretty much fixed as to how they work; good and bad.  Mzinga have their focus on Enterprise and eLearning.  Awareness are building communities and neighborhoods.  But, none of us really know what will be needed so agility will be key!

It's going to be fun!!