What a difference a few years can make. For the last few months, I think I’ve spent more time talking people out of using social media than talking them into it. The pendulum has swung the other way, especially in the marketing industry. Everyone wants to be everywhere. Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter Facebook, Vine, Foursquare, Klout – you name it, they want it. And not only do they want it, they want eleventy-billion fans/followers/likes/comments/minions/+1s too. Brands seem to be at war in some sort of social media arms race and there’s no end in sight. As I was sitting at home the other night looking over a proposed Instagram initiative focused on encouraging users to take pictures of the company’s products and use a special hashtag , I received some advice from a social media expert I had never consulted before.
My Two-Year Old Daughter, AKA my Social Media Expert
After listening to me tell my wife about the idea in the presentation, my daughter Annabelle looked up at me and said, “why, Daddy?”
Me (dummy): “Well, because they want people to share pictures with their friends.”
Annabelle (social media expert): “What pictures? Like of kitties or doggies? I like kitties.”
Me: “Well, not quite. More like pictures of their products”
Annabelle: “Why?”
Me: “Because they want their customers to take pictures of their products and share them with their friends.”
Annabelle: “Why would they do that Daddy?”
Me: “….”
Well OK then. Aside from considering setting aside some budget to hire a new (very) junior freelancer, I realized that my two-year old asked a question that everyone else seemed to have failed to ask – why? Why would someone share that?
Too many people get caught up in all the hype and hyperbole surrounding social media that they lose sight of what’s really important. Instead of using social media to achieve actual business goals like sales, attendance, or customer satisfaction, they chase numbers like fans, followers, mentions, or likes because those big numbers sound awesome in presentations. Social media becomes the end in and of itself, rather than the means.
As you develop social media strategies and tactics, take some advice from a two-year-old and ask “why?” But don’t stop there. Ask all the questions – ask who, what, when, where, and how too. Force everyone to stay focused on the business objectives, not the big numbers that sounds great in presentations. Following Annabelle’s lead, I’ve come up with a few questions that I now ask my teams all the time –
- Why would anyone share this?
- What’s in it for the customer?
- What does success look like?
- Why are we dedicating resources to this instead of that?
- How will this help us sell more products/services?
- What happens if we don’t do this?
- How does this fit with our company DNA?
- What happens when…?
- Who’s responsible for…?
And the next time you’re listening to some social media expert drone on about some new social media tactic, try acting like a two-year-old and ask a bunch of questions. You might be surprised to discover that no one else has bothered to ask the simplest question of all – why?
at
So, I have been doing a LOT of presentations to nonprofit folks on social media. And I spend a lot of that time talking about planning. Too many nonprofits start with tactics. They jump on Facebook and just start posting. I talk to them about choosing platforms based on goals and objectives and where the people they want to reach hang out online. No one has ever told them any of this before. From what I understand, they same appears to be true with business. Social media is free and easy and miraculous…um, not so much. But with some time and effort, a good plan and the willingness to evaluate their efforts and keep adjusting their plans based on what happens, they will ultimately see some great results.
Now if we could just get them to stop measuring results at the top of the funnel…that might have to be in the next round of presentations. 🙂
at
I agree wholeheartedly about asking all these questions! However, I think that the public feel that if a company doesn’t have the social media presence to rival another company, there must be something inferior about that company. That might be one important answer to the question ‘What happens if we don’t do this?’
at
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at
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