Ten Things Social Media Can't Do
A Healthy Reminder for Setting Expectations
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| B.L. Ochman | |
Social media can't:
- Substitute for marketing strategy.
A Twitter campaign or a Facebook page that announces your weekly specials is not a marketing strategy. - Succeed without top management buy-in.
Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers, make changes based on feedback and trust employees to talk to customers.The culture of fear (of job loss, of losing message control, of change) is ingrained in corporate cultures. Top management has to want to change.
- Be viewed as a short-term project.
Social media is not a one-shot deal. It's a long-term commitment to openness, experimentation and change that requires time to bear fruit. - Produce meaningful, measurable results quickly.
One of the complaints about social media is that it can't be measured. But there are many things that can be measured, including engagement, sentiment and whether increased traffic leads to sales.Those results can't be produced or measured in the short term. Like PR, social media marketing often produces its best results in the second and third year.
- Be done in-house by the vast majority of companies.
A successful social-media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content and contests into online marketing.You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience -- a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.
- Provide a quick fix to the bottom line or a tarnished reputation.
Social media can sometimes provide quick results for a company that's already a star. When a well-loved company like Zappos or Google employs social media, its loyal fans and followers pay attention.However, there's a lot of desperation in a lot of corporate suites these days, and many companies seem been convinced that a social-media campaign can provide a quick fix to sagging sales or reputation issues. Sorry, nuh, uh.
- Be done without a realistic budget.
Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn't come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing.Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce and creating style sheets that integrate with the company's branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.
- Guarantee sales or influence.
Unless your effort can pass the "who cares" test -- and most simply can't -- your social media efforts will fall flat.And unless you know how to drive traffic to your contest, video, blog, event, etc., you'll have little more than an expensive field of dreams.
- Be done by "kids" who "understand social innately"
You can climb Mount Kilaminjaro without a sherpa guide, but why would you? Experience and perspective can make the trip easier, or even save your life.Companies trying to run social media without experienced consultants waste time, money and reputation on their efforts. And then, sadly, many decide that this new-fangled approach doesn't work.
- Replace PR.
No matter how great your website, video contest, blog, Twitter strategy, etc., you still need publicity. Or you may end up with a tree falling in the forest and nobody hearing it.
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR | |
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B.L. Ochman is a marketing strategist and blogger and can be found Twittering, at WhatsNextOnline.com or with her newest venture, Pawfun.com. |
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Most tools need to be used in a coordinated way. You don't build a house with a hammer; you use a saw, a level, a screwdriver, etc. So social media will be most effective when used with other existing tools at a marketer's disposal.
Nevertheless, the newness and "fun" of these new tools have led to what are now innovations by marketers.
That's why we created the B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards - to recognize B2B organizations for outstanding contributions in practicing, promoting, and/or enhancing business via the micro-blogging sensation Twitter.
This year's Program is gaining momentum - With a growing list of impressive B2B professionals on the judging panel, the awards will warrant much attention and produce great accounts of Twitter successes.
Unlike social media "popularity contests," the B2B Twitterer of the Year awards are awarded to qualified, nominated entities, are run by B2B veterans and focus on B2B only.
Check it out at http://www.b2btoty.com
Thanks!
Point #1 gets exactly at a recent post I did called Social Media is Not a Strategy: http://newmediacampaigns.com/page/social-media-is-not-a-strategy
Thanks for putting this out there, a good one to share w/ clients.
Clay
http://twitter.com/newmediaclay
Alycia de Mesa
http://www.demesabrands.com
thanks
One additional point:
SOCIAL MEDIA CAN'T:
• GUARANTEE ONLY A POSITIVE DIALOGUE. There is often a burst of negativity at the start of the conversation. Negative people tend to be the loudest. (Think talk radio.) Usually this fades as more positive comments start coming in. The point is, the brand must be prepared in advance for the negative as well as the positive. Some experience with crisis management could come in handy. A little patience wouldn't hurt, either.
Mark Drossman
http://extrovertic.com
You have to tap into the core elements which make Facebook and Twitter tick. Facebook is great for leveraging friendships and conversations are better organized. Twitter is a little more wild, built around associations people have around common interests (almost like make-shift groups), and easier to follow in terms of brand mentions since most tweets are public.
You have to deeply understand the brand and how to add the brand's voice into those cultures before you can leverage them properly. Once you do, you can then build a more comprehensive strategy that boosts your brand's presence on those networks.
And just like with more traditional ad campaigns, those strategies are unique to any individual brand and you can't shoehorn in surefire "tactics."
- Anthony Perez
http://www.brandthony.com
Conversation LLC (http://www.heyconvo.com)
Yet, I've seen brands do MORE than they need to do to compensate when negatives come up.
the key is to acknowledge negative feedback and respond appropriately. That varies from situation to situation.
That's another important thing about using social media. It, whether you want it to be or not, will be an extension of your customer service department. You will have people complain about things such as the online shopping on your site not working, and you'll have to respond.
Otherwise, you might be seen as a brand who doesn't care when people have a legitimate problem and ask for a solution on your page. The person who gets ignored by Facebook will become annoyed at the brand and those who see that person ignored will figure the brand doesn't care on a platform that is all about response and relationships.
- Anthony Perez
http://www.brandthony.com
Conversation LLC (http://www.heyconvo.com)
While each of your points is perfectly cogent, together they are disempowering. Perfectionism is boring. I'm not a "social" expert but I'll bet that some of the most successful "social" campaigns have broken at least a few of your rules.
Axle Davids
http://www.distility.com
Patterson - thanks to you and several other peeps for telling me about the sherpas. as you can tell, i don't do a lot of mountain climbing. :>)
Anthony - i absolutely agree. I wrote a post not long ago with the headline Dear Corporations: Nothing Else Matters If Your Customer Service sucks.
Unfortunately, customer service is looked upon as a low-level job in most companies. i think customer service ought to be handled at the C-level.
In many ways, social media is just a vehicle that marketing execs should be using to create another touchpoint with key audiences.
A strategy would be beneficial-start with customer engagement points and work in the conversations into CRM- real data, weighted, actionable responses- then use to drive inbound sales.
tangible- it works - new tools are amazing! Upcoming webinars might be useful to many SME's..
Craig Stark
Partner
www.salesforcestrategies.com
Technetium Creative
www.technetium.com
I really enjoyed reading this post and I think you are right on target with a lot of the points.
I do disagree with the idea that you need someone with 10 years experience in "social media." I think that social media marketing as a discipline has evolved so much in the last 10 years, that there is no such thing as a "10 year expert" in the field. In fact, someone who has been studying "social media" for 10+ years could be out of touch with what works best right now.
What you really need is someone who understands (and has experience in) core marketing concepts that will always be true, no matter what tools you are using.
Thanks for all the great insight!
I would also add that social networking can't be done without active participation from everyone.
Social networking is a tactic, not a strategy.
Thanks for the post!
Also, Amazon had done some very interesting things prior to Facebook, Napster, Friendster and My Space. Yahoo groups and AOL groups were quite active in the space as well.
Tim Schreier
NY
Most marketers are simply trying to capture, control and claim a movement whose true potential is still unrealized, but obviously has serious consequences for the industry. Social media is more than just one tool in the box.
that requires breaking through the corporate silos - something that's not happening any time soon in most big companies.
carlphelps - "What you really need is someone who understands (and has experience in) core marketing concepts that will always be true, no matter what tools you are using." If you re-read the post, you'll see that is what it is about.
As for someone who has 10 years experience being out of touch with what works right now: that simply makes no sense.
Tim Schreier - remember the messy threads in chat rooms? remember the comment spam, obscenity, etc. in forums? You're right that the purpose of the worldwide web is to bring people together and give everyone a voice. But the tools of today offer a much better way for people to connect and converse than did earlier incarnations.
It really is unfortunate that it's not happening at the big companies. There are so many passionate people working at some of these companies who just love their brand. If they were given an outlet, they could become powerful evangelists for the brand. By not "getting it," companies are missing a golden opportunity from inside their own organizations.
Thanks again!
Jean Levasseur
www.captainsofindustry.com
Social Media is the reason this is true. As true can and will be told by the public which brands have no control over.
I think it is because it actually outlines successful SM initiatives according to the hard work being done. SM is not some magical pixie dust - but just a tool. (A really important tool in the 21st century.)
Success requires $$, planning, creativity, relevance, leadership and execution.
BL's post confirms this, and so validates the hard (mostly anon) work being done by companies, agencies and consultants all over the country.
More here on "Why We Loved 10 Things SM Can't Do"
http://tinyurl.com/ydnwyom
TO'B
MotiveQuest LLC
I agree with Axle (and for the record he didn't call you boring, he called perfectionism boring). You make really good points, mostly, but it's almost like trying to find some rules in an unknown universe. Sometimes those rules work but sometimes they don't.
I am a "social" professional and frankly, I can run circles around those so called "consultants." I haven't found a workshop or book that can tell me how to incorporate social better that I have or how to find a measurable statistic to show the higher ups to prove it works (and I am self-taught... no high priced consultant help). I am sick of people representing themselves as social media experts. None of us are... yet. Zappos hit on a good formula but that doesn't translate to every industry. Dirk Shaw has some good insights that I find helpful on his blog but he can't fill in all the holes.
And I somewhat disagree about #9. Yes, you can't just pull some 18 year old into your company and have them make Facebook work for you but the people I know that are successful in this industry are (like myself) in their mid to late 20's. We may be kids who understand and use social media in our day to day lives but we also have Masters degrees and a good number of years making Myspace and Facebook work for companies. What I do know, is for the most part, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. The "older folk" I have worked with (who don't have a FB account and are unsure how the technology works) and tried to educate in new media have come back to me confused and desperate. I set them up with a "kid" who understand how to make a FB page and what a status update is and they work together.
Overall, good article, quit dumping on your commenters or your "4000 retweets" are unlikely to repeat RT, and thank you for laying this out in a simple manner that is helpful to show to clients or C-level execs.
Tom, thank you so much for your insightful post. Happy to have inspired you. And OMG what an adorable Lab.
Jean: I agree that companies often miss the opportunity to let their internal brand evangelists have a voice. I tell me clients that if they don't trust their employees to deal with customers and the public, they need to look at their hiring policies.
I completely disagree with #5 if you are a small business. Do it in house.
And social media GETS you PR. I do it in house and a tweet got me a write up in People Magazine and they even tweeted the article back in August.
I agree social media is hyped up a lot as if its a panacea for all ills plaguing marketers or as a quick fix for how to get in touch with consumers. However in my neck of the woods, social media is usually viewed as a tag on to the original marketing campaign. In our market the general view is that cohesion is achieved by having the same visual/audio elements in all parts of the campaign. For instance a radio ad would just be the audio of the TVC and print would be similar to a still shot of the TVC. This false belief that continuity can only be achieved by reproducing the basic elements in all parts of a campaign leads to media executions that fail to remember the power of the media.
Similarly with social media if you don't respect the media and do not have a knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses you will end up using it inefficiently and more important ineffectively. The problem is people have a little knowledge and they try to join things up like how BL joined up Mt Kilimanjaro and sherpas! Both are related to mountains but both are totally separate.
In the same way social media and mainstream marketing are often mismatched. They both relate to communication but how much of an overlap there is and whether they can be meshed together or not requires more than a perfunctory knowledge.
Tyrone Tellis,
Media Planner
Karachi,Pakitan.
http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_side_pro
tcotta - also think you make a good point on the differences for small businesses. We have about 400k small businesses running on our platform and by far the ones that are most successful are the ones that embrace the DIY portion of our tools at the proprietor/owner level. http://fourfirkins.cloudprofile.com and thousands of other examples have taught us that.
Good old reader comments still work - http://tr.im/questionable
Also cut the short url nonsense - give folk a clue to what the blasted urls are actually about - rofl
However, to quote the great blues singer, Sippie Wallace: "But you got to know how."
The author either doesn't truly understand how social media facilitates transparency or she simply possesses a blind spot when it comes to basic social interaction. e.g denigrating your audience when they put forth an opposing point of view is a quick way to turn off potential customers. Likewise, ignoring the substance of a comment questioning an assumption of the article and instead replying with how many RTs the article has received comes off seeming petty and defensive.
The article left me wondering why I'd trust my clients' brands with someone who has so little regard for her own.
if it doesn't resonate with you, that's cool. rock on.
There was an error in the link to linkedin.
http://pk.linkedin.com/in/tyronetellis
I am not a social media expert but from the dialogue here it looks like a lot of people consider themselves as such!
The power of SM is just that there are no 100% certified experts like MCSE etc. There is no one shoe fits all solution.
Tyrone
Adrian Cojocaru
New Media Marketing JE
www.aquasoft.ro
http://twitter.com/AQUASoft
It is our policy to support young professionals at the start of their careers and, in time, we built one of strongest teams in our field of expertise. We just apply the same principles in the new media domain, and so far the results were quite good.
Kayvan Mott