Tag Archives: social media planning

When Social Media Channels Don’t Matter

If you don’t have a brand strategy and rich, compelling content to supply people on at least a semi-consistent basis, I don’t care how many social media channels are out there. You should not be on a single one of them until you figure out what your purpose is and what you’re going to supply in the way of content that people can benefit from.

Until you address that, you have no heart. No soul. No story. No brand.

“Should we be on Facebook?” If you don’t know what you’re going to say there? No.

“Should we be on Pinterest since there’s a lot of women on it and we’re a female-owned company?”
No. You should be on Pinterest if you see an opportunity for people to piece together what you believe and value  as a brand (or as a person behind that brand). The fact you share a gender has nothing to do with it.

“I have 25,000 followers on Twitter.” Am I supposed to be impressed by that, really? You could’ve bought those for all I know. Which, by the way, is really stupid and less than genuine. Now, if you were someone who got to that point of greatness through your constant back-and-forth interaction, I think you’ve got something. More than something, actually. You have a story to tell that provides a continuous stream of content that people can benefit from? You’ve got some meat to go with those potatoes. Some heart and soul. Some vision.

“Should we be on (insert any social media channel you want here) since our competitors are there?” No. At least not for that reason alone. Because all you’re doing is playing monkey see, monkey do and following their every move. Do you want to have a purpose or do you want to be a puppet?

Social media is the megaphone. But without knowing what to say and how to say it, all that comes out of it is noise.

For some of you, this may be elementary. If so, my apologies. But there’s still a lot of people out there who are putting up Facebook pages, Twitter handles, YouTube channels and Pinterest boards…without knowing why. Don’t put up a social media channel because everybody’s doing it. Be able to say “We put up a Facebook Page because our audience is there, it’s the best place for us to convey what our brand is trying to say, it’s where we’ve seen strong interaction, etc.”

It’s like buying a house and saying afterward, “Why did we buy that?”

Your spouse looks at you and says, “Well, because everybody said we should.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t fit with our life’s plan or our goals. I don’t even know if I’m going to like this neighborhood a few years from now.”

“Well, jeez. Why are you telling me this now after we just invested in one of the most important purchases of our lives?”

It’s not easy to walk away from that decision, obviously. Once you’re in, you’re there to stay for a while. It’s not that different from the social media commitment in a way. If you’ve already “bought” a place on social media, it’s hard to suddenly say, “You know what, online universe? We don’t want to be on this channel after all. Never mind.”

It’s not too late to turn that ship around. But take a look in the mirror and ask why you’re there and what you want to say. Everyone should do this self-check regularly, myself included.

The story of your brand can never stop being told. Don’t waste another moment finding out what yours is.

3 Times When Social Media Isn’t Right For You.

I’m a gigantic social media fan, but I can never automatically recommend everyone be on social media. True, I could analyze a company from a brand perspective and I’ll invariably recommend social media channels for them. But as I dig deeper, I come to realize that there are a few cases that it’s not right for. Less because it isn’t right for their brand or because their audience isn’t living on any social media channels, more because their internal culture just flat-out isn’t ready for it or isn’t fully behind it when they do decide to go down that path. I’ll give you some examples:

1. “I’m afraid of what people will say about us.”
If your customer service sucks, it’s going to get talked about whether you like it or not. So you might as well create a centralized place where you can funnel these thoughts from customers and respond to them accordingly. The beauty of social media is that it causes you to take a deeper look at your operation and see where there might be cracks in your service offerings. News Flash: We all make mistakes. Still, an overriding culture of fear or lack of understanding of social media tools can lead to overreaction – “Someone said something bad about us! Take down the Facebook Page before the CEO sees it!” Well, maybe you should just sit social media out for a while until you’re prepared to be honest with your organization’s shortcomings. Again, we all have weak points. If you don’t want to address those weak points, there’s an issue there that you’re glossing over. And the more you do ignore it, the more people will talk about that issue online in various places anyway.

2.  100% broadcasting rather than interacting.
I actually wrote a post about how the Cubs and White Sox in their Twitter streams were doing this within a monitored period of 72-hours – broadcasting almost entirely about themselves and not interacting with their fans on Twitter. Seriously, you’re telling me that nobody behind a computer in either of these front offices can ask daily questions of their fans and then respond to those questions? Come on!

The point here is that companies who want to exclusively post without any kind of interaction with their customer and prospect base are essentially just advertising to people. There’s nothing wrong with sharing all the pertinent news of your company with the outside world, but doing that without demonstrating any type of care for understanding their thoughts, wants, needs and questions is defeating the purpose of why they call it SOCIAL media. There are many other options to consider along an advertising or PR route if you want to go that way instead.

3. Expecting it to do everything while you do nothing.
“Well, I just did some posts. Why isn’t my phone ringing?”
Because you’re expecting Facebook to run your business instead of you. What phone calls are you making? What events are you attending? What appointments are you setting up? What prospecting are you doing (which you can partly do through social media among other things, by the way)?

If you’re in sales, then be in sales and sell. Social media can shine a light on your authority in wonderful ways but it can’t make up for a complete lack of sales initiative on your part. I’m not the world’s greatest salesperson, but I’d be kidding myself if I thought I didn’t need to press the flesh with real people as opposed to being behind a laptop all day. It’s when they have met me and then gone online to learn more (or perhaps done this in advance of the meeting – even better), that some solid credibility is hopefully built. If you don’t know how to get out there into the world or you’re timid about it, you’re not alone. Lots of people are not natural-born salespeople or networkers, yet strive to get better at it. Just don’t hide behind social media channels and then blame them for the weaknesses you’re not willing to address either.

Honesty. Transparency. Strong internal and external communication. Willingness to admit when things go wrong and a demonstration of what they’re doing to fix them. Taking action instead of merely planning and giving speeches. These are some of  the areas that can propel a company forward. It’s the companies that want to appear perfect, robotic and transmitting vs. conversing that probably want to take a long look at themselves before plunging into social media.

Fortunately, I’m finding those kinds of companies that have yet to understand the reality that they employ human beings and not robots are fewer and farther between. Innovation by its very nature is to say that what you did before was not as good as what you are doing today. So if we can be honest that we are getting better than we were before in product/service development, why can’t we be honest about how we’re striving to get better in other areas of the company? I think that’s a positive, rapport-building story waiting to be told with an audience. Not run away from.

How has your culture shifted from a closed loop to a more open style to your benefit? Share it! Or do you see challenges due to your industry that you’re not sure if you’re ready to be “social”? Let’s talk about them here if you’re comfortable sharing.