Businesses: Stay Away From Social Media If You Meet The Following Criteria

At least two or three times a week I am asked the question, “Do we really need to develop a social media strategy?  Can we really benefit from participating?”

70-80% of the time my answer is yes, as almost any business can benefit long-term from participating in social media the RIGHT way.  It occurred to me today, however, that I rarely document the occasions when I advise businesses to steer clear of social media.

After looking through some meeting notes, here are some common reasons for a business to stay away from social media:

1.  Your company and/or management team does not believe in social media.

This is always a tough one to handle.  On the one hand, if everyone followed this rule then social media would be dead already, as most proponents start out as non-believers.  On the other hand, if you are supposed to be the champion of the program and you don’t even believe in the benefits of social media, you’ll never sell it internally and if you do, you’ll never execute with passion and consistency.

2.  You’re not willing to build even a simple strategy for social media, or you’re not willing to figure out how social media fits into broader marketing and organizational goals.

If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, I telegraphed this one for you.  Tactics without strategy will eventually fail.  Say it again.  Tactics without strategy will eventually fail.

3.  Your business bases everything on strict cost-benefit analysis, and defined ROI is expected quickly.

Much of what you can expect to execute in the social media realm is going to be experimental initially.  Very few organizations have found a concrete way to tie social media investment directly to revenue increases or cost savings.

If your CFO or Controller or even your VP of Marketing is going to treat an investment in social media like an investment in direct mail or pay-per-click search engine marketing, it’s probably not going to work out for you.

4.  You or those you report to are going to base social media success on the number of followers, friends or connections you accumulate.

Pet peeve alert!

Unless you are representing a universal or nearly universal consumer product, stop counting followers, friends and connections.  Do the smart thing.  Identify a segment of the audience that you want to reach, and make the focus of your social media program reaching as many members of that segment as possible.  Rinse and repeat with the next segment.

If the focal point of your strategy is to accumulate as many friends, followers or connections as possible, you’ll fail in social media eventually.  Or you’ll become very annoying to your audience, and they’ll start tuning you out…which I suppose is the same thing as failing.

5.  Your company’s executive leadership and/or thought leaders aren’t part of the social media effort.

Certain types of social media are not inherently meant for corporate representation.  They were built for individual representation, with the obvious benefit of creating a platform from which you can share business interests and news.

Many companies abuse social media properties, and part of this abuse lies in the lack of participation from the real personalities that reflect the brand.  See Will’s recent post on Zappos excellence in marketing and customer service, and in particular the involvement of their CEO in all social media efforts, for an example of the way this should be done.

There are some Twitter business users with massive followings that remind me of Paris Hilton.  Never accomplished much, famous for being famous, annoying as hell to listen to…and then the clincher comes when I hear that they have interns or assistants representing them on Twitter.  That’s crap.  Plain and simple.  Ghostwriting is one thing, ghosttwittering is quite another.

6.  You can’t write well and can’t find someone that can write well.

Again, if you’re a frequent reader of the Marketing Trenches, you know that we believe writing impacts the quality of everything.  This applies to social media as well.  Write poorly, and you give people reason to tune you out.  Write well, and you at least have a chance to reach and engage your audience.

7.  You don’t have proprietary content, don’t want to author proprietary content, and aren’t willing to recommend or share others’ content.

Like most marketing efforts, in social media content is king.  You’re going to need web pages, blog posts, press releases, case studies, research reports…you get the point.  To really take advantage of social media, you need to either produce that content internally or be willing to share content from outside sources that you deem valuable.

8.  Your business doesn’t have a tolerance for open, back-and-forth, sometimes unfiltered conversation.

Social media has a way of enhancing some strengths, and more importantly exposing some weaknesses.  Since social media does tend to represent a more open platform than the rest of your marketing programs, do a reality check first.  If your business can’t handle the idea of some dirty laundry or even just some moderately dirty laundry being exposed, stay away.

9.  Your business is trying social media because it is viewed as a low-cost, low-effort marketing program.

First of all, if you’re doing social media right it’s not low effort.  It can be low cost as compared to the media dollars laid out for a search campaign or fees paid for a public relations effort, but that’s only because companies tend to put cheaper junior staffers on the social media beat.

There’s nothing wrong with experimenting or “testing” social media.  If low cost or low effort is what finally moves you to try it out, it’s probably not the right move to begin with.

10.  You’re going to hand your social media program to an intern because you think social media is the domain of the young.

Will does a great job of explaining why this is a mistake in a recent post on Marketing Misconceptions.  While an intern may understand the ins and outs of each social media property better than you do, guess what?  They don’t understand the business implications of your social media strategy better than you do, and if they do…maybe you shouldn’t be sitting in the seat you’re sitting in.

About Mike Sweeney:

As Right Source’s co-founder and CEO, Mike Sweeney creates, plans, and implements our vision, mission, culture, and strategic direction as well as serving as an advisor to our clients. Mike received a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a major in marketing from the University of Notre Dame and has more than 20 years of experience in B2B marketing strategy, including digital, content, and marketing technology. You can find Mike on LinkedIn.