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Whenever I hear a business owner or top manager say they have a Social Media Strategy, I always ask them for a quick description.
In almost every case, their answer is “Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.”
I follow-up with … those are the best tactics: but what is your strategy?
It ends there.
I know I am beating a dead horse – and have probably written about this too many times: but I can’t believe that it remains the #1 answer I hear – even a year later. Good thing there is no drinking game based on hearing that answer or I’d be three sheets to the wind by noon!
** It should be noted that many of my interactions with biz owners and managers is due to an inquiry to my services as a marketing guru … and that today I’ve been reading about the origins of expressions**
These same biz people don’t surf their own social media sites and only get involved when someone rips them with a negative status update. It’s like they are just going through the motions because of some fad.
Their sincere ignorance is your strategic advantage.
To them, and to many big advertising firms, social Media is the Rodney Dangerfield of marketing. They have an intern or some “young person who understands this stuff” update their social media sites, while they focus their time and effort on TV or billboards or direct mail (real marketing!).
I would tell them don’t bother with social media.
Social media is about dialog. You have the opportunity to forge an on-going dialog with the consumer … one they will appreciate and reward with continued patronage.
They don’t want to talk to an intern: they want the decision maker.
As for tactics? It doesn’t matter what you use or if you invent your own. It’s not how you talk to your customer, it’s what you are saying … and how the are responding.
One savvy biz owner I met decided to have regular open houses with great incentives for their best customers to attend at least a few times per year. This is a small biz in which the principles spend time talking IN PERSON to their best customers.
Imaging asking your best customers – IN PERSON – how they are doing? In other words … allowing them to update their status FACE-TO-FACE
Would I recommend that this biz use some modern tactics – you bet. But their IN-PERSON social media strategy is leaps and bounds above so many other transparent ones.
And their interns just serve cookies.
I was thinking about this business while reading an interesting piece from iMedia Connection: Is a Social Media Bubble Ready To Burst?
In the piece, Michael Estrin discusses:
- Due to misguided beliefs, agencies and brands place more social responsibility in the hands of interns than they should
- Some critics claim brands are overvaluing their “friends”
- The question of whether there’s a social media bubble depends on how you’re using social media
For sure – My colleagues who open their business up a few times a year for their best customers, are not worrying about any bursting bubbles, negative status updates or Twitter being over capacity.
They’ve got a strategy … one that will out-live any potential fads or bubbles.