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Are You a Social Media Pragmatist or Purist?

By: Amber Morris | 12/23/2009

I "recently read" a great blog post by Matt Rhodes outlining five questions to ask when choosing a social media agency. At the time, I was preparing for a business trip and on deadline for several projects, but the post and its five questions have since occupied my thoughts, particularly question No. 1: Are you social media pragmatists or social media purists?

Truth be told, the purist in me almost kept me from writing this post because "recently read" actually equaled nearly a month ago, and a month is eons in the social media landscape. Now that things are a little slower before holiday break, the pragmatist in me decided sharing Rhodes's insights was more important than worrying about whether I broke the sound barrier in retweeting or sharing the link.

Despite my dilemma about whether to post, overall, I'm a pragmatist. As Rhodes suggests, hard and fast social media rules aren't always realistic. One that comes to mind is that individuals, rather than brands, must be the face for social media efforts. This isn't always realistic in terms of time commitments - with a brand, a team of tweeters or Facebook updaters can take on the tasks, rather than one person. Plus there are plenty of brands and brand icons that consumers have strong relationships with - @shamu, @southwestair and @wholefoods are great examples on Twitter. These brands and many others are following the fundamentals of social media - being authentic (to their brands) and conversational - and are using the tools to further engage their customers.

One rule that isn't breakable for us at Standing - ghost blogging or Tweeting for individuals. We won't do it for our clients and strongly counsel our clients' internal communications teams not to do it for their organizations' leaders. A pragmatic, yet purist tip to help bloggers with the time commitment is to monitor traditional and social media outlets for bloggers, sending the most relevant stories for them to review, supplement with their thought leadership and then link to.

Where do you land on the social media purist or pragmatist spectrum? If you are a pragmatist, what are some of the ideas or tips that have worked for you or your organization?

Posted in Digital Communications