Why are we doing this?

The most cringe-inducing question in any organization is 'Why are we doing this?'

While this applies for any business activity that an organization undertakes, it is equally, if not more challenging in the area of communications. The reality is that this question leads to other unsettling questions about goals and measures - and sets you up for the risk of failure. Precision is not always welcome. While for-profit businesses have a bottom line that stares you in the face and is the ultimate judge of your success, most public sector organizations (my background) do not have that dose of reality. Outcome success measures, such as changing public opinion, are more vague and are usually very expensive to evaluate at a quantitative level. So little measurement is done and we avoid the question of why we do things.

Back to the central question, my sense is that the reason why many organizations undertake communications activities is a combination of:

1. We have always done this (media releases)
2. We need to show we are doing something (brochure)
3. Somebody has asked us for a specific product (promo item, ad)
4. Everybody else is doing this (social media)

I have asked myself the big question often, but usually after the fact, rather than before. And if you ask yourself after the fact, there's a good chance that the answer is - 'we had no idea why we did this.'

Lately, this question comes up for me more with social media. It is time-consuming to do it right. It is the flavour of the moment. So why, why, why? I have grown less skeptical over time because I realize that as something new, there is a need to experiment to sharpen the value proposition. And the reality is that old media value propositions are not carried out with a lot of measurement precision either. 

But I do think social media is plagued by the same loose thinking as old media but with the advantage of being new and cool. In discussions, you will hear the most common goals of new media to be engagement and community-building. Sounds vague to me... 

Given social media is web-based, there is the opportunity to measure more precisely than old media, which will be extremely helpful in the long run. In the short run, it makes sense to have some patience to see what can work and what builds traffic and viewership. In the medium term, there is a need for some measures that can help set up realistic answers to the big question - 'Why are we doing this?' Let's hope communicators and marketers learn to wrestle with this question more often.