It’s true! While the very essence of social media is accessibility and ease of use, there are still many ways that a company can fail in their social media endeavors. Perhaps pointing out ways to not use social media will help to clarify the best ways to use it.
Amy Mengel at Social Media Today posted some great reasoning for why corporations are failing at social media. These reasons point directly back to the information I have previously posted about the who, what, when, where and why of companies using social media to develop relationships with their stakeholders. Companies will fail with their social media usage when they can’t talk about anything broader than their products. This goes back to that relationship building. Customers do not want to be bombarded by one message that may or may not have anything to do with them. Also, listening but not taking any action is a guaranteed way to misuse social media. The interactivity of social media is made for both listening and responding to consumer comments. Not taking advantage of that interactivity is detrimental to your company’s social media utilization. Lastly, just placing your company on every social media outlet available without any justification or strategy is never going to work. Your company must be aware of both the risks and benefits of each individual social media platform, and it must base a social media strategy on the analysis of these factors.
Zia Yusef, executive vice president for SAP’s global ecosystem and partner group was recently interviewed by Forbes magazine about his views on the dos and don’ts of social media. One of the most salient points of Yusef’s interview is when he says that it is not necessary or effective for a company to try to control a social media community once they start it. Even if the community grows to enormous numbers, try to manage and control content on it to protect your company is not going to work. It will just make your company appear overbearing and it may even turn customers and users off. Customer’s needs should be at the center of any social media endeavor. Instead, Yusef suggests that while communities cannot be managed, they can be influenced. Leadership will eventually emerge, and when that happens it is beneficial to support the most active and followed people. This will allow your company to indirectly influence the community.
I’ll leave you with a funny (albeit poorly filmed) video that illustrating some major DON’Ts of social media relationship building.
There are many advantages to using social media that can really boost profit, brand recognition and/or internal development for a company, but there are problems still lurking within social communities. What you said about companies not trying to control what is going on in a community they established (maybe a Facebook group) is interesting because I am currently investigating issues revolving around negative online chatter due to these sorts of communities. Companies can usually use the negative comments to look internally and fix what users are complaining about, but it is never easy to sit back and let the online community take full control over what is said about your company.
Thanks for the link to my post, Casey – and the humorous video!
Thank you for writing such an insightful and informative post in the first place!
This is a very insightful post! We are currently learning so much about how social media positively affects businesses and corporations that we also have to note the negative aspects, and what we can do as future corporate communicators to acknowledge them. This reminds me of Caroline’s post about the Honda corporation encouraging their employees to write positive reviews on a failing product. This is definitely a WRONG way to handle and approach the problem within a social community. Companies should at all costs maintain transparency with the public, let negative and positive feedback float in and out, and respond to them efficiently – but never take a domineering, authoritative role. It would be impossible to try and control a community of thousands!
It’s interesting to note how social media is involving, and watching companies learn the best ways of using the tools and how to handle various situations stemming from social media.
Social media is a great solution for a company trying to become more transparent. But you’re right… you can’t expect to gain trust by simply implementing all the different social media tools. You need to be interactive. You need to keep updating, responding and reaching out to your audience. If you create a Twitter account- blast those 140 character updates as often as possible. If you make a Facebook fan page- respond to comments left on the wall. A company won’t pay for social media applications in dollar amounts- it’s not that expensive. The amount of time employees invest in social media is the cost.
By the way that was a funny video clip. It emphasizes the importance of building and maintaining relationships, instead of having a million “friends” or “followers” you know nothing about. But if that guy said “check it out” one more time, I was going to have to shut it off.
Yeah, the video was a bit overkill. But I felt that his obnoxiousness really embodied the way that I feel sometimes when I’m browsing my favorite sites. How many times have you had to deal with a million pop ups or those HORRIBLE talking advertisements when all you want to do is check out content on the page? Even if the ad is for something you care about, it’s never going to reach you or effect you in any way.