According to this blogger, GMOOT is the battle cry heard across marketing departments everywhere with respect to social networking. GMOOT is the acronym for “get me one of those” which this blogger characterizes as what’s fueling the interest in social networking activities. She goes on to say that the end result is that most organizations put up a Facebook page and a Twitter account – dust off their hands and congratulate themselves on having checked the social networking box for executive management.

She has a point. The frenzy over getting “social” reminds me of the frenzy in the late 1990’s over “ebusiness.” I remember the mad rush over how to ebusiness-ize business but not always because it was the right thing to do, but out of fear of being left behind if something wasn’t done immediately. We sort of know how that story ended, lots of ebusiness initiatives were tubed after massive infusions of cash and many more e-only companies crashed and burned.

Today’s experience with social networking strategies doesn’t have to end the same way, even though many marketers are privately anguished over the lackluster results of their “social” initiatives. One reason for that anguish is the lack of distinction made between social and digital strategies. They aren’t the same, even though social may use digital means to create engagement among groups. Another is that many of the social initiatives are driven by marcom, which is frankly only the tip of the social iceberg, if you will. Social strategies often deliver the most impact when they involve the development of social products or to innovate other aspects of the enterprise value chain such as customer service. Still another is the assumption that people are dying to organize and socialize around your products. Most marcom folks think product first then community – and our experience tells us that it is very much the other way around.

The anecdote to this corporate heartburn is viewing social as a way to drive the business strategy of an organization. We’ve seen how social strategy can be a powerful mechanism for creating strong relationships with customers and brands and products and, what we call, barriers to exit. Social strategy should be integrated into the overall business objectives of an organization in much the same way as ebusiness/ecommerce is today. We would argue that unless and until social strategy is viewed as more than a marketing tactic, brands will fail to monetize their investments in social programs and worse, will lose ground to those who get there first.

So, in other words, give GMOOT the boot.