The discussions whether Social Media is a fad or why corporate executives don't see the opportunity are pretty much history. With the inception of reporting tools, methods to measure success and models and frameworks to articulate strategies - social media entered the board rooms. And pretty quickly social media became a competitive weapon.

What is "Social Competition"?

Competition for mind share, competition for group or community members, competition for influence. And it is also competition for better solutions co-created with the users who establish a sense of ownership and help promote the products they at least influenced. It is a competition for the more engaged support community where user support user and augment to company support team. It is competition for the smarter sales teams which may quickly develop larger and more influential social networks, with better customer relationships in those networks.

Social competition is a competition for skilled people who understand that this is not about a new more efficient technology but about a new, more effective way to socialize with more people over a larger geographic reach. Social competition is a way to not only win the heart and the mind of your own customers but the customers of your competitors.

And like any other competitive weapon, it requires skills, strategic thinking and rigorous execution. Social competition requires understanding the new tools and apply new methods.

Social competition seems like a hard expression in a social world where we try to collaborate and jointly develop new solutions. But in order to follow the path of nature - where evolution through competition is a major part of the concept - we can't ignore both THREAT and OPPORTUNITY to engage in the social web to create better ways to work with our customers, compete for mind share and a better customer experience.

We are preparing a specific class for social competition. What do you think? What would you expect? What do you care most about?

@AxelS
Social Media Academy