"Very good. You're doing everything fine," my tango instructor said to me in a thick French accent, "now there's just one thing you have to stop doing. Stop thinking about it so much." The Argentine tango music vibrated the concrete floor beneath us. I was a full head taller than him so I looked over the top of it at the wall and exhaled, shaking my own. Right, I thought, stop thinking so much.

The Eager Type

Always been the eager type. When it comes to school I want all the information, the books required by the teacher plus a few supplemental ones from the library (just in case) and a study group to make sure I've got it. And that eagerness translates into overthinking on the dance floor. It leads to overthinking and hanging out in the theoretical realm. It raises the delivery bar. It keeps projects in incubation phase - freezing them, preserving them, suspended crystalline fragments waiting, but never coming, to fruition.

"We want to add social media to our company strategy."

I hear "we want to add social media to our strategy" several times a week. It is impossible to imagine what "social media will do for you" without close examination - of your goals and the company environment - for two reasons. One: social media isn't sitting around trying to figure out what it can do for you. If you want to be part of the conversation you have to figure out what you're going to do within it. But the second part is perhaps the bigger deal.

If your organization is resistant to it, it will never be fully "implemented" into your strategy.

When a person from an organization approaches me about "adding social media" to the plan they ask it as though it has a simple answer. "So," the conversation begins, "we want to get started with social media and we heard you do that social media stuff. What can you do for us?" Seems simple. Like a cake mix. Add egg and stir! 

Of course it isn't that simple, but I don't have to tell you that. It's not a badge you throw on your site to show you and your team are now Social Media Savvy. 

Before your company has a social web/media consultant come pay your team a visit, create a situation that is optimum for her/him. Gather the ingredients and she can help facilitate the cooking process, if you'll allow me to continue the metaphor.

1. Get everyone on your team on board. 

This doesn't mean everyone has to be in looooove and want to make out with the idea of more work being added to their job description. (Who is?) Do you/does your team already have a presence on the social web? If not, consider hosting a social media 101 session before the consultant visits. You don't need a social web strategy if you aren't already up to speed on how to use the tools. Understanding how the tools work comes first. Talking strategy is a moot point if you don't understand the tools (as a team or individual) first.

2. Answer this question: Are you committed, as an individual and a team, to making it work after the expert leaves?

If you're bringing a consultant in to convince you that you need social media, reconsider. That's an expensive move when times are tough (and for a startup, that's all the time). And it eats up the time you could be spending working on solving problems and working on strategy.

If you're not committed to making it work after the consultant leaves the building, reconsider bringing her in in the first place.

3. What's your implementation rate? Know it.

If you've brought in consultants in the past, how long did it take you to implement their suggestions? How long does it take your company to test new marketing/outreach/evangelism strategies? If it's a long, bureaucratic process and changes have to clear a team of lawyers, check out other companies that have implemented social media even with challenges of that nature. (Yahoo! comes to mind. As does Whole Foods.) If it's your peak season consider how quickly you'll be able to implement what the consultant brings to your team - a week quickly turns into a month and on the social web, that may mean it has become stale. Do you want to be serving month-old cake to your clients?

4. Can your key players be in the meeting?

If your key outreach coordinator/social media person can't make the meeting, reschedule it. 

5. How will you follow up with your team (or yourself)?

I've had the opportunity to speak with more than a dozen individuals over the past week and a half since we launched the Unconventional Guide. These "rockstar jumpstart" sessions are intended to be just that - a kickstart to your practice, wherever you happen to be, within the social web. And because most of my work is with small companies, individuals and at the university level, there is overlap in the questions asked. Although the questions are often about how to get started (the fun part) there are rarely questions about how to keep going (the harder part) and even fewer about what to do when it's no fun at all and you don't want to blog and it's hard and nobody is commenting. 

The challenge 

Anyway, the challenge to you is that you take all of this and then forget it. And read this article by Adam Singer on why Overthinking is the Enemy of Creatives.

You don't need a book to show you how to dance. You don't need a book to show you how to do yoga. You definitely don't need a book to learn how to be social. Don't overthink it but do set the stage for the dance to occur. 

Also, go buy some Gotan Project if you love tango and beautiful music.