Do you make these social media mistakes?
Original picture source: www.jeffbullas.com
“We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media. The question is how well we DO it.”
I saw this
quote of Erik Qualman in a video I checked out the other day. The video,Social Media Revolution 2012 brings together shocking facts
about social media (f.e. some universities stop using email accounts and start
using social media instead) and how it affects offline behaviour (3 out of 5
gay couple meet online!). The video shows how powerful social media is today. Surprise surprise. A lot of researches have been done and most of
them support this statement. According to a research done by Social Media Today, 42% SME owners claim that 25% of new customers
are acquired through social media.
Enough said, even your mom knows how important it is to have social media presence for businesses. However, many business owners and professionals underestimate social media practices. Some of them think that using social media for personal purposes instantly makes them social media experts. And then, they start doing social media for brands with neither a deeper understanding of the subject nor any strategy.
When doing social media for businesses, make sure
that you avoid these social media mistakes:
1. Treat social media as your
stepchild
Some
companies do social media just for the sake of being there. They are not
willing to spend significant money to hire social media professionals or to
spend time researching what the best practice is. We can’t expect to have an
instant success on anything, can we?
2.
Too slow to respond
In
corporations, we are all bombarded by emails, meetings and hierarchy. Prioritising
those over social media is a common practice. We easily forget the beauty of
social media: it facilitates instant
interaction between our brands and consumers. Social media needs fast
responses, otherwise your social relationships would suffer.
3. Have no
social media voice
General belief says that corporations have no sense of humour. And this is what corporations communicate on social media. They are being too serious, trying to be inoffensive and politically correct all the time. That’s boring. You must have a clear voice. If your company’s tone of voice is sarcastic, then be it! If your employees like to joke around, then show it! Having a clear voice or personality will make some consumers love you and some hate you. But isn’t it the number one rule of branding? Never try to satisfy everyone; a strong brand is the one that is either liked or hated. Think about “possibly the greatest conversation on Twitter ever” between Douwe Egberts and The Dolphin Pub. This is a great example of having a clear voice on social media.
General belief says that corporations have no sense of humour. And this is what corporations communicate on social media. They are being too serious, trying to be inoffensive and politically correct all the time. That’s boring. You must have a clear voice. If your company’s tone of voice is sarcastic, then be it! If your employees like to joke around, then show it! Having a clear voice or personality will make some consumers love you and some hate you. But isn’t it the number one rule of branding? Never try to satisfy everyone; a strong brand is the one that is either liked or hated. Think about “possibly the greatest conversation on Twitter ever” between Douwe Egberts and The Dolphin Pub. This is a great example of having a clear voice on social media.
4. Focusing
on selling rather than customer service
Wouldn’t you
be hating if all the brands you follow were trying to sell you something? I
would. Some corporations’ bottom line to measure social media effectiveness is
the number of sales deals closed. However, this is not something we should directly
focus on. Have you heard 80/20 rule? 80% of the company profit comes from 20%
customers. Doesn’t it make more sense if you focus to satisfy those 20%
customers to make them remain loyal? Social media is a great tool to escalate
your customer service as you will react in real time and other people will see
how well you handle other customers. Read how you do great customer service on Twitter street style.
5. Generalise
ROI of social media
“The ROI of social
media is your business will still exist in 5 years”
A pretty
strong statement mentioned in Social Media Revolution 2012 [Socialnomics 3] video. I’m really curious how they did the math. Is this based on an assumption that every business does
social media well?
For me,
social media ROI is something that can’t be generalised. ROI is really dependent
on your business objectives. Do you want to reach PR objectives in a cheaper
and faster way? Do you want to increase your brand awareness, reach and
engagement? Or do you want to decrease call centre cost and increase customer
revenue? Your social media strategy needs to be adjusted to your business
objectives. And social media ROI predicts whether you’ll reach the goal.
How about
key performance indicators such as number of likes, virality, number of
retweets? Those are things that can help you calculating ROI. Not the final
numbers. If you are interested in knowing how to correctly calculate your
social media ROI, see ROI of Social Media: Myths, Truths and How to Measure.
Do you know
any other social media mistakes? Share them in comments below.
Happy socialising!
ht.
ht.
Thank you for sharing about this information. That's nice and interesting, I like it.
ReplyDeleteBy
Ron James
Get Pinterest Followers
Hi James, great to hear that you found it interesting. Thanks for your feedback.
DeleteCheers,
Helga