Wikipedia tells us this:
Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes.[1] The term often implies a certain disapproval of newly adopted goals by the user of the term. Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs. The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to many different fields, mainly the growth of bureaucracies.
The most exciting part of social media might be its tendency to effect many areas of a given business. The definition above tells us that mission creep occurs, usually after initial successes, when new objectives get plastered onto an existing framework. This can be both a good and a bad thing. I’ve seen both.
The beneficial way this occurs is when I am brought into a situation where my responsibilities include only social media. Early successes lead the firm to slowly expand my purview and begin asking for assistance in other areas like technology, customer service, sales, events, etc. Of course this brings up a prickly question of payment. If I’ve been hired under one set of understandings and that begins to change, does my contract get renegotiated? Not likely. You see the problem then.
Why does mission creep occur so often in social media?
As I just alluded to, social media is not a walled-garden. It can’t be compartmentalized. Social media touches almost everything within a business.
- Technology: Websites need to be retrofitted. New programs need to be installed, new security measures and protocols need to be developed. Training needs to take place.
- Customer Service: What good is introducing new clients into your business if you can’t close them? Customer service has changed, irrevocably. With so many great options, with so many new businesses competing for consumer dollars, businesses can’t afford not to radically rethink their customer service. It only takes one bad experience with a customer service rep, a waiter or host, an airline stewardess to erase months of good intentions and marketing.
- Branding: One of the first things I tell clients is to put their Facebook and Twitter accounts into their email addresses. It’s corny I know. But if you are really committed to social media, then you’ll do it. How many emails do we send a day? What’s next? How about menus and postcards? Brochures and advertisements—they all need to get socialized. And sometimes this is more than just tacking on information and links, sometimes it requires a total or partial branding rethink.
One of the things I’ve discovered is that businesses don’t trust outside consultants as much as consultants think they do. Maybe this is common knowledge to more experienced parties but I had to learn this one on my own. I have to really earn the trust. The paycheck is often enough secondary to the trust. I’ve worked with clients who have continued to pay me, but in actuality they were listening to me less. And their platform suffered for it. Not because they didn’t listen to me, OK, because they didnt listen to meDespite my best efforts and their wonderful staff, we didn’t achieve all that we could.
Right off the bat, I’ve got to start earning the trust. I’ve got to, believe it or not, deemphasize the tools of social media and immediately begin making the case that social media is more than blogs, Twitter clients, Facebook fans, and unique views. It’s more than mobile apps and geolocation discounts, its more than group buying coupons and mayorships. (I could do this all night).
Social media is your chance to revolutionize your business. It’s not progress, its a step back, its a revival! A revival of common sense in marketing and communication and customer service. Personally, I don’t mind a mission creep. Who knows? I may need to invent another business for myself…
Image courtesy of cliff1066™ on Flickr
