Additionally, choosing one medium allows for much easier measurement and analytics, to determine if the effort has delivered and if it’s worthwhile to expand.

Of course, to do this, you also have to choose one goal – customer service, marketing, branding, PR…etc. – pick one & stick to it – let your goal be the guiding influence in choosing the most effective social platform and your method for measuring results.

This is my “Pilot Program.” It has longevity, a goal, consistency, and it’s measurable. If it’s deemed to be successful, you can adapt this mini-initiative to other social media, or expand your goals, if desired. Either way, limiting yourself or your brand to 1 goal, 1 platform, 1 campaign is the best, IMHO, form of Pilot Program – insofar as that it has all the elements of a traditional and comprehensive campaign, while keeping things simple enough to act as a test of your needs, capabilities, and suitability for the effectively utilizing these media.

No. Because your market research has given you the answers you need to launch the next part of your strategy. You have the ammunition and you have your targets, so you go for them.

Social media is the same. Okay, so now it’s two-way conversation as opposed to one-way dialogue, but does that mean you take baby steps? No – it means you make more effort to ensure you’re prepared for what lies ahead.

How do you do this? If you’re a company that’s serious about a digital presence, you’re already involved on a personal level (or your employees are).

If not, you bring in a consultancy or agency to get you up to speed. You decide on the strongest tools for you to use and build effectively there, as opposed to haphazardly everywhere. You monitor progress (yes, SWOT still counts in social media) and you make sure you’re adaptable from the lessons learned along the way.

If you’re going to get drunk, you don’t drink apple juice. If you’re going to be serious about any strategy, social media-led or otherwise, you don’t say, “Well, let’s try build a little bit here and if we don’t like it let’s go back to our comfort zone.”

Starting something and pulling out can be perceived more negatively than not having started in the first place. No customer wants to deal with an indecisive company. Do they?

What’s worked well in my experience is to use pilot programs, but not with the official stamp of the organization. Have the folks who’d be managing social media at the organization start using social media personally.

Usually people figure out pretty quickly if there’s relevance for their organization or not, and which tools would best serve them.

Pilot programs will always have their place in every industry, but I tend to think that social media should see less of them, if not none. I say this because who cares if you screw up in the social media realm? The point is not to not make mistakes, but to act like a normal human being/company and own up to your mistakes when you make them. Those companies that think they should do pilot programs because they will somehow allow them a better glimpse into the social media world, and therefore somehow they will have a leg up with “best practices,” (a truly horrible term) are fooling themselves. Social media is just human interaction online.

My advice to companies that want pilot programs is this: just step in already. No one is going to bite you. Sure, there are bloggers that may rip your crappy social marketing campaign to shreds; but how is that not better than having people hate your TV marketing campaign and not being able to say anything about it?

I could say more, but this is a comment not a blog

Having a plan is probably always better, but IMHO telling people they shouldn’t try without a top-down plan will discourage experimentation, which – despite what some marcomms may say – is not always detrimental and can lead to real breakthroughs.

We, as social media enthusiasts, typically only respond to genuine conversation and interaction (which, in it’s own right can be difficult to achieve for a business). One of the first things that has be be brought to light when launching a social media campaign is that it involves time – time to both establish, then nurture the relationships and connections that are forged.

However, my biggest concern is the community that you have engaged during this ‘pilot program’. What happens to these people? You got their attention, they’re listening and now you’re going to eliminate this channel? To me, that’s poor service. Where’s the incentive for that customer to continue to engage with you? You lead them on, got what you wanted and determined it wasn’t worth it?

Social media isn’t for everyone. Not every organization should implement it. But it’s not trial-by-error. I think it’s your responsibility to do the proper research, come up with a strategic plan and implement the plan. If it doesn’t work, determine why. Jumping in and testing the waters isn’t the way to implement social media, though.