Main Topic

Definition

Relevance

Practical use

About the pbsm

pbsm stands for potential-based strategy model. It is a strategy model that has been adapted for social media and is based on the potential that can be realized and used.
In other words, the pbsm shows what benefits social media has for companies and how this potential can be exploited through appropriate strategies.

The pbsm is not a reinvention of strategy. It is an adaptation of proven methods for social media. In this respect, however, it is new. Especially because the understanding of strategy in social media is generally underdeveloped. The pbsm makes it possible to develop pragmatic and practice-oriented strategies that meet the requirements of strategy. So the pbsm does not deliver “strategy light” but sound strategies with a method that is easier to apply. Even if the method leads to well-founded and resilient strategies in a simpler way, it still has to be learned.

Basis of the method

The pbsm ist based on

• Social media performance potential for businesses. This requires a sufficient understanding of the benefits of social media for the company’s business model. The pbsm provides the method with which social media managers can create this foundation.
• Information quality of companies’ options to realize the benefits from social media. The better we understand which benefits of social media can be realized for the company with which measures in the respective competition and which prerequisites must be met for this, the sooner we can develop a promising strategy. If we dont know our options and their competition, our strategy is based on a more or less arbitrary and random part of reality. The pbsm provides a unique method for a comprehensive overview of the benefits of social media for the company, the competitive situation for the respective benefit and the options for action for realizing this benefit.
• the quality of decisions in the strategy process. The quality of our strategic decisions is based on knowing our options and on personal strategic competence.

Main advantages of the pbsm

As a method, pbsm not only creates greater benefits for the company, but also a better overview of benefits, measures, competition and resources during strategy definition. Users know what to do to achieve goals and what to do when situations change. Below are some of the particularly outstanding advantages of the method for its users.

• Focus Business Model: Strategies based on the pbsm start with the benefits of social media for the business model. This means that social media supports the company’s success more comprehensively as a whole than if the social media strategy were geared to marketing objectives only.
• Effective deployment of resources: Strategies according to the pbsm are more precise because they are geared towards the specific benefit for individual areas of the business model and focus on the areas in which the benefit can actually be realized with the company’s resources.
• Better strategy decisions: Beim pbsm leiten wir Strategien / Strategieversionen über die Social Media Handlungsoptionen ab. Deren hohe Informationsqualität ermöglicht bessere Strategieentscheidungen.
• Competitive strength: viele Social Media Strategien ignorieren die Wettbewerbssituation, was unrealistisch und für den Erfolg einer Strategie fahrlässig ist. pbsm.Strategen basieren auf der konkreten Wettbewerbssituation der Social Media Nutzen, die das Unternehmen realisieren will und sind damit wettbewerbsfähig.
• Flexible and dynamic: The prerequisites and requirements from pbsm.strategies are defined and the strategy and its competitive situation are transparent. This enables strategies to be quickly adapted and thus a better and faster strategy management, which benefits the strategy’s success.

History

When training social media managers, I recognized the shortcomings of this training in the area of strategy development first hand and replaced them with my approach based on the social media performance potential and the benefits of social media for companies. This was an eye-opening experience for a few social media managers, but overall it was just a drop in the bucket and did not fundamentally change the problem of inadequate training in this area. We still produce to many social media managers who know exactly what to do in social media and how, but who don’t really know how social media can benefit their company’s business model and thus its overall success.

Since I cannot change the social media manager training program either nationally or internationally I decided to make my pbsm method available as an online course. Building up social media strategy competence in this way seems logical to me with a target group that is particularly Internet-savvy. Above all, more social media managers can update their strategy competence in this way.
And because strategy is not a trivial topic, I support course participants within the limits of my time.