Lee Odden’s article on content strategy vs. tactics got a lot of attention this week, with more than 40 people in his social network expressing their opinion on the value of social media experimentation.

Odden doesn’t believe the “throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” approach to social media is wise, but he does believe a company can test certain channels without a broad, or expensive, commitment to one particular tactic. However, he says, “that effort should be guided by smart analysis of audience, tools and with the aid of goals and measurement methodology. Without a plan, social media efforts often fail, waste time, money and detract from the brand experience.”
Read some of the responses to the article from social media gurus like Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Katie Payne, Peter Kim, Debbie Weil and David Meerman Scott.
So, where does Hammock fall in the debate over which comes first: content strategy or tactics? For us, there is no point in just embarking on a social media tactic for a client just to do it. We need to first understand the client goal so that then we can create custom tactics to meet that goal. Our Content Marketing Intelligence Report (CMIR) lets the research guide the tactics.
We use social media platforms at a minimum to distribute client content via those outlets so that its audience can read and receive important content wherever they take in their info, whether they use Facebook or Twitter as a news reader or whether they subscribe to a company’s newsletter or blog. Our ultimate goal is to distribute engaging content to these different audiences–using whichever social media tools are relevant to the client’s audience.