BusyWorkerBee

I’m the first person to advise consideration for social media.  But the fact is, it’s not relevant for every business, particularly businesses who want in on a whim.

Think of it this way; would you take out a radio ad in Turkey if your target market only did business in China?  No.  In the same light, why would you want to engage in social media if your target market are lower LSM mobile users without a data plan or the physical capability to see a Facebook page on their phone? It sounds unheard of in this day and age, but there are loads of South African’s who cannot or won’t access the internet, due to a number of reasons:

1. They have no phone with web browsing
2. They don’t understand the internet
3. That specific demographic has no interest in the internet

Aside from the logistical challenges, as a brand, are you really prepared to get into this social media thing?  Have you discussed it with your EXCO?  Does your marketing team know about it?  How about your call center, will they be able to help with customer queries and feedback using social media channels?  Do you have budget to do this thing properly?  Above all else, do you have capacity to dedicate a stakeholder internally to own and embrace social media as a fully fledged communications and marketing channel?  

You see, the thing is, social media is a like a 5 year old child that needs dedication, commitment and nurturing.  If not, I’d recommend that you don’t do it at all, not at least until you’re really, really ready.  Social media is a wonderful thing, but it’s not the be all to every business issue and challenge.  Integrating it into how you do business is what you need to strive for.  Social media is best served with strategy and plays well with others.  

As my colleague, David Alves, always says*, “You can have the best social media customer care plan in the world, but if that staff member on the other side of the counter is still rude to your customers, you’re not going to get a positive sentiment on Facebook”

If I can leave you with one thing to consider before planning a social media project, it’s this:

Think “social media business” not “social media solution”.  

*I’m paraphrasing.

Awesome, you get paid to sit on Facebook & Twitter all day!

Firstly, no.  Secondly, the 20-30% of the day I do get to sit on Facebook or Twitter is spent scrolling through ignorant, uninformed and frustrated consumer comments who want to speak to/rant/insult/threaten the brand(s) I represent.  It’s not always fun, it’s not always satisfying and it’s not always “awesome”.  It’s part of my job.  

Rad, I know how to use Facebook so I’ll tell everyone I’m a social media “guru”!

Yeah, buddy, good luck with that.  Just this morning my team and I were saying how we all thought we knew social media until we did it full time.  As we’ve all learned, it’s more than just operating a Facebook page and Twitter account.  It’s about learning the ins and outs of your client’s business objectives, internal processes, escalation protocols and integrating that into a proper content schedule, timeline and strategy.  It’s about creating, maintaining and reviewing brand tonality.  It’s about regular reviewing all of the above and embracing change and amending what needs to be amended.  It’s about analysis of statistics, forming insights and forecasting future methods.  It’s about reporting honestly, advising constantly and enforcing patience in every single time you need to educate the same colleague/client/consumer about the same challenge over and over and over again.  It’s about being prepared to face mistakes made that are visible to everyone who can access your page.

Calling yourself a guru is a pretentious, arsehole move.  No one is a guru.  Especially in social media.  This industry changes so often that it’s virtually impossible to claim to know everything because the minute you discover one thing, something else shuts down/gets cancelled/falls apart.  Allow me to offer some advice.  Embrace these three things, self-proclaimed “guru”: Learn, relearn and unlearn.  

Social media is all free, because it’s free to create the pages.

Sure, it is free to create a Youtube channel.  But how about the design?  SEO keyword implementation?  Copywriting?  Creation of videos to upload?  More relevantly, who’s going to pay for the time it takes seeding the content?  One more thing to consider: once the copy, design, SEO and editing has all been approved through QA, who’s going to visit your channel without a proper media campaign? Sure, things can grow organically, and they do, but most people don’t have time for that and want results immediately.  This is where the cost comes in… 

Social media will guarantee my video going viral, right?  Right?

Wrong!  Great content that the user will want to share with their friends will guarantee your video going viral!

I had a bad experience with your brand and I’m a blogger, therefore you need to give me everything I want for free or I’ll write a blog post about you!  

Ooooh, I’m so scared!  So you had a bad experience, I’m sorry.  My client is sorry too, sincerely.  Please kill the threats and tell me, without emotional blackmail, how we can rectify the situation for you and prevent this from happening again.  In my experience, to fix a bad consumer experience is to have honest, accurate and specific feedback from that consumer.  Shouting in capital letters “YOUR BRAND SUCKS ASS I’M NEVER COMING BACK AND NEITHER ARE MY FRIENDS!!!!!1111ONE11!!ELEVEN!!” just makes me tempted to delete your comment* and pretend you fell off a cliff.  

It really kills me how everyone seems to think that just because they’ve created their own virtual soap box this now entitles them to special treatment.  The way I see it is, no one is more important than anyone else.  If you’re a blogger with 10 000 hits on every post, your bad experience is just as important to me (and the brand) as Marie from Pofadder’s bad experience.  The only difference is that Marie wrote a polite comment on our Facebook wall explaining what happened and you wrote a scathing tweet/blog post/Facebook wall and asked all your friends to share it online.  It’s a douche move, don’t do it.  

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* Not that I’d do that.  It’s wrong and against best global practice.  But it’s still very, very tempting.