Social media is a new, and hot, marketing platform. In the wake of two social media industry events, Noah Elkin asks, when will marketers marry the tactical and strategic approaches?

With the internet now a staple of the global economy, we're used to hearing about the digital divide -- the gulf that separates those with cheap, reliable and fast online access from those without. Yet even the digital "haves" are not immune from divides of their own. Within online marketing circles, the split between strategy and tactics is as venerable as the web itself. And inasmuch as the broader digital divide is a product of and a contributor to ongoing economic and social imbalances, the separation between strategy and tactics has important ramifications for the way marketers function in a fast-moving business.

That all sounds pretty grave, and undoubtedly more so than the day-to-day reality. While the fate of humanity is not at stake here, it is the case that anytime a new channel or medium emerges, and consumer-generated content can be considered both, the impulse to rush in and start implementing right away is strong. I'm sure that for most agencies, barely a week goes by without an inquiry from a client or prospect about "what to do about social media." (I've found "Do I need a MySpace page?" and "Should I develop a Facebook application?" to be among the most oft-recurring questions.) Nowadays, every company is afraid it will lose ground to its competitors unless it acts fast.

Acting fast, however, tends to accentuate the gulf between the so-called thinkers and doers. It's roughly comparable to speaking off the cuff as opposed to spending hours preparing for a presentation -- rare is the person who excels at both equally well. Most people are better served by organizing their thoughts and words before delivering them. Similarly, I would argue that most companies are better served by developing a strategy that ties into their brand and marketing goals before deciding on what tactics to adopt to implement that strategy.

If a client asks what to do about the negative things people are saying online about his or her business, building a MySpace page surely is not the first (or even right) answer. Step one would be to fully understand the client's overall business and brand strategy and undertake a comprehensive audit of where that client stands in online social networks -- then, and only then, plan how to engage with those networks. The less you know going in the less likely you are able to be useful.

Two different perspectives
Yet in attending two recent industry conferences -- SMX Social Media in New York, and Forrester Research's Consumer Forum in Chicago, which focused on Forrester's extensive social computing initiative -- I was reminded that conversations between the tacticians who roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty with the very specific business of running an online campaign and those who focus on brand strategy often take place in parallel (and sometimes seemingly in isolation). The audiences and speakers for the two events could not have been more dissimilar: the SMX event had more of an SMB (small and medium-size business) slant to it, and the panels tended to emphasize granular tactical questions over strategic ones, while high-level marketing, agency and PR executives from big brands dominated at Consumer Forum.

SMBs and the tactical approach
For example, one of the first sessions at SMX was a very detailed workshop on best practices for developing "link bait" -- generating in- and outbound links that will boost a site's traffic and visibility. According to several of the panelists, top-10 lists, how-tos, offbeat topics and images campaigns are extremely effective methods for attracting link bait, with compelling, relevant content the key (as it always is). The discussion even included a primer on how to write headlines, such as the importance of capitalizing the first letter of the first word to make it stand out and the degree to which consumers of social media have no tolerance for spelling errors or inaccuracy. All very useful information, but perhaps more geared to the nimble owner of a small website than to a global corporation. In fact, it's a little difficult to imagine that a CMO of a major brand would even know what to do with the idea of linkbaiting, even if the end goal were self-evident.

Big brands and higher level strategy
As a member of a subsequent panel pointed out, corporate social media still functions in a far more top-down fashion, and that was reflected in the "big idea" focus of the Forrester conference. Just as the fictional CMO might not know what to do with the linkbaiting best practices, the tactician or small business owner might be equally lost with Playboy Chairman and CEO Christie Hefner's presentation on extending the brand with social media technology. Developing a presence in Second Life may have worked for Playboy, but what lessons can other companies derive from that success? Should they follow Playboy's lead?

Will the two approaches meet?
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that there is anything wrong with the emphasis of either conference or of any of the individual panels or panelists. On the contrary, both are necessary and highly relevant, so what I’m advocating is more of a meeting of the minds. At SMX, Sarah Hofstetter of 360i evoked the image of a hub-and-spoke system, with strategy as the hub and tactics the spokes, which implies unity, not division. It's a more effective way to get the most mileage out of engagement with social media (and probably works better than the airlines' hub-and-spoke systems to boot).

Noah Elkin, Ph.D., is vice president of corporate strategy at iCrossing. Read full bio.