9 years ago, I wrote and saved this title as a draft idea. I now feel like I know the answer. A lot has changed since I first had the idea, including myself. I have evolved. My thinking around social media has evolved. As has social media. It’s no longer the thing as much as it is A thing. It’s like an appliance now.

In 2012, I was working at Accenture. Prior to that I was at Ernst and Young. At each place, my sole focus was on Social Media. At EY it was on behalf of our clients. At Accenture it was all about promoting Accenture. It’s crazy to think that in the span of nine years, we now have a mature Instagram and Pinterest. Google+ came and went. Same with Vine, Periscope and Meerkat. Poof, gone. We’ve seen the meteoric rise of Snapchat and TikTok and we’ve seen the demise of civil discourse on social platforms.

What else has changed? What hasn’t changed?

Really the answer is everything and nothing.

So what determines social media success in any organization? Two things. One, define what success looks like and how you’re going to measure it and Two, commit to that success and don’t bail on it.

Trust your process and your people.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re using it for marketing, sales, HR or recruiting. Social media is only nebulous to those that don’t understand its impact.