Invite colleagues
Most weeks I am lucky enough to be included in meetings with various marketing departments, where they discuss their "social media strategy". The social media guy typically will stand up and in a voice hoarse with excitement, confides that we now have fourteen new people in our Renren or Facebook page in just the past week. This brings our total fan number to 173 friends, of whom seven; yes, that's right, seven, have posted responses to the latest communication from the company.
At this point, the marketing manager will shake his head with wonderment and say "well done- this just goes to show that we are on track with our social media plan".
There is something enormously depressing for me when considering the current enthusiasm for social media in the world of business. Well-paid people in large companies spending hours a day moderating sites that are read by as few as a hundred of so people. They could ring them individually and it would be a better use of time.
I'm not attacking social media; I'm an enthusiastic Facebooker/Twitterer/Weiboer etc myself. As a method of finding photo's of old girlfriends/boyfriends and realizing maybe you have been right to move on at the time, it's hard to imagine a more effective platform. And, of course, in a place like Egypt, it's obvious that social media played a key role in last week's uprising and changing the course of a Nation.
Yet, as with any new technology, there are the killer apps and dead end ones. The problem is that most of those who talk about social media have a vested interest in talking it up: they are Agency's (like mine), internally interested social media junkies keen to achieve further employment or CMO's wanting to seem on top of the latest trends.
Don't get me wrong- I am not bagging social media as an illegitimate way of developing strong engagement models with consumers or being used to promote brand messages. Social media is and over time will become a more important channel in a digital marketers promotional arsenal.
What gets me frustrated is the over simplistic view of this medium, the lack of understanding in the ways to really measure outcomes against business goals and the poor and ineffective execution practices. Please, let me poke the next marketing manager in the eye who says he only wants followers for his company twitter account (and not understanding why this is a good or bad thing - just that more followers must be good - right!)
Before letting your social junkie convince you that your company is missing the boat because you don't have a Facebook page or twitter account.. ask for some simple things from them.
- Who are you wanting to reach and engage (what is the ideal persona of this companies - who buys our stuff)
- Where does this persona reside online (Is Facebook or Twitter really the right platforms?)
- What is the message/s you are going to use for starting, growing and maintaining a relationship with your social followers/fans?
- What are metrics are you going to use to understand if you are on track (and why)
- Finally, how long is this going to run for... and by the way, aren't you the intern that leaves in 3 months?
Good luck with social media- it is a crucially important medium and used well, a highly effective channel. Just don't become a case study in what not to do.
Written on Saturday, 19 February 2011 09:16 by Matt McDougall