Most brands want to do something in social media, to make a difference in social spaces. So what stops them? For many, one of the main barriers to ‘diving in’ is an inability to answer a simple question: is our organisation ready?

FMCG and ‘consumer’ brands have an inherent advantage when it comes to social media. Neatly defined products, with neatly defined attributes that can be amplified in social media with confidence. For most brands however, the dimensions of social media are significantly broader. It’s not quite as easy to transfer brand performance, behaviour and reputation into social spaces without getting a little twitchy about what could go wrong.

Add the additional element of brands that are regulated, self or otherwise, and the social media opportunity rapidly changes into a problem. If you’re a business that gives advice or provides products and services to the public under strict rules, regulation or compliance, social media is a headache.

Rules and guidance on usage to staff encouraging them to ‘do the right thing’ in social media doesn’t cut it. What’s needed is a comprehensive understanding of what will happen when you ‘open the door’ and let people in, or perhaps more scarily, open the door and let your people out.

There is no silver bullet solution, but an important place to start is by understanding the level of social enablement that is already present within your organisation and to map this against your social ambition. This is what we call establishing your social brand fitness.

For the last few months, we have been working to put shape around a diagnostic that reflects social brand fitness. The result has been the naming of nine key indicators of social fitness that need to be considered in developing a social brand strategy.