I was talking to some marketing and web people from a Big Company today. They’re at the beginning of their journey into embracing social media. What I liked about their approach was that they had assembled a cross-disciplinary team to look into it and work on a strategy together. They with representatives from marketing, advertising, HR, IT and PR. This is great, because social media touches an organisation in so many different places (oo-er.) But the big gap was that there were no representatives from the operational side of their business. You know, those people who actually provide the products and services to the customers. The ones who can ultimately fix a customer’s problem or make the service better.

Social media is not just a marketing issue. Just look at Dell’s experience. They couldn’t market themselves out of the Dell Hell mess. They had to go back to the operation and fix the product. Social media provides you with eyes and ears to listen to customers, but ultimately you will live or die by what you deliver.

So get those Operations people around the table and talking about social media with the marketing guys. Then get them engaging directly with customers through social media and providing an amazing customer experience.