Play. Pause. Forward.

The euphoria surrounding social media has been so infectious that many brand managers and organizations have jumped headlong into opening their own Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.

Some enterprising ones have conducted a campaign or two using these social platforms that they have classified as unqualified successes because it generated some buzz in the form of hashtags earned, or increased followers in the Facebook ro Twitter accounts. But are they real successes? In the business world communications is but a tool.Tools are useful when they help the business to achieve its objectives,wasteful when they do not. Social media and its platforms, in this sense, are but tools to achieve business objectives like increased sales and closer ties to customers that matter most.

In this context, how many of the social media programs we see around us in Indonesia are flashes-in-the-pan that create a lot of razzle and dazzle for a moment and then die down, conspicuously  achieving nothing?  How many social programs out there will never help an iota in increasing sales and/or strengthening the bond between brands and their consumers?

How many zombie Facebook pages and Twitter accounts are there out there in cyber space, brought to life in a rush of enthusiasm and then neglected when the owner can’t quite figure that to do next?

If any of this describes the organizations you’re familiar with then its time to get real, to take a pause and question who do you real need to communicate with via cosmical media and to what end, before forging ahead with your social media activities at a faster clip.

It is with this in mind that my colleagues at Raconteur and Brio have put together a workshop that aims give brands/organizations/ social media policy and usage a health check up; as well as hands-on practical sessions in mapping out your real audience and what strategies to adopt moving forward that are real and relevant to the people you are trying to reach.

The workshop, to be held on November 24, will be run by Hanny Kusumawati who’s perhaps better known by her Twitter handle @beradadisini and the movement she started, Coin-a-Chance, that has won several awards and recognized for its innovative use of social media. Hanny who lectures on communications at Universitas Paramadina and is an oft sought after speaker on social media, also heads Raconteur, the digital storytellers division in Maverick. There she and her team consult to clients on how best to use social media to meet their business objectives.

She’s assisted by Jonathan Tenggara, our resident geek who specializes in digital technology and social media analysis. He’ll be able to tell you how to measure and quantify the impact social media campaigns and programs have on your brands.

They are very bright guys who also happen to know the Indonesian social media landscape inside out so it should be workshop that anyone who’s interested in boosting their businesses’ social media performance cannot afford to miss.