Sometimes, we do it so right. Sometimes, Texans uses Twitter for social change; Ford responds swiftly and personally to an online comment; a president-elect asks the populace for feedback on important issues; a much-maligned cable company gives customers a prompt, personal alternative to waiting on hold; a hotel CEO gives his chain a human face while gaining business through blog clickthroughs.
And sometimes, individuals and companies get into social media for all the wrong reasons. Tara Hunt, the brilliant networker and online marketer, gave an address for E.Day 2007 on How to Make a Gabillion Dollars with Community Marketing--take a look at the video here or her SlideShare presentation and script in the blog article above. And for all the wonderful, positive spin she puts on what by now we all know we need to do in order to create a passionate online network of supportive, caring, engaged, raving fans, some folks still get it wrong. Some folks still insist on using old-world marking, throwing around ROI like it's the only bottom line to consider, and carefully massaging each message until it's worded like a PR spam robot not having the least resemblance to a human voice.
For your more fearful clients who have the inclination to use social media like it's a spambot, a list:
How to frak up social media and guarantee it's a waste of your time
- Treat people in your new social networks as prospects, not friends. Make sure that you constantly bombard them with one-way messages about how great your product is. Make sure that you tell them everything about your product without listening to what they have to say. Don't check for input or use your social networks as focus groups whose opinions are gold; treat them like a cheap pool of customers. Or, better yet, treat them like an email list you blast with self-promoting messages without considering their needs or asking what they want. Don't consider Tara Hunt's statement, "But what is important to note here is that even the most distant “friend” on one of these networks has more influence over my buying decisions than any ad or salesperson I encounter." Come across as a salesperson, not a friend!
- Be in a hurry to show "results." Forget that "Connections over time equal trust" (--Tara Hunt); insist on showing immediate sales, hits and clickthroughs from your blog, podcast, Twitter or Facebook page with no concern for building relationships with your friends and participants. Gage your success by the number of messages you send out, not by the quality of the relationships you build. Show a lack of concern for your own credibility by diving into social networks like Facebook or Twitter without listening first or participating in any conversations, groups or causes other than your own. In short, be selfish, self-serving and closed off. Ask "what's in it for me?" rather than "what can I do to help you?"
- Keep it impersonal; sounds like a corporation. Avoid speaking in a human voice; always "regret any inconvenience we may have caused you" instead of saying "sorry we messed up." People love to interact with stale, sterile impersonal corporations, right? They really enjoy the brick wall of carefully-worded corporatespeak, so be sure to use lots of it in your communications. Additionally, be sure to treat everyone in your network as a collective group--your "constituents"--instead of interacting with them as individuals. Shun individuality and personal conversations; value press releases and corporate jargon. Ignore the fact that most people crave personal connections that result in long-term, valuable relationships; complain that that takes too long to establish and send out an email blast instead.
- Don't go where your community actually is. Stay in the boardroom. Put press releases on your static website. Don't set up Google searches for your company name, your competitor's company name, and the challenge that your product or service provides a solution to. Don't monitor where people are discussing your product or the problem that your product solves--just stay at home and keep sending out those one-way messages. They'll hit the right people eventually, right? No need to go into the trenches and actually talk with the people that use (or that might use) your product or service. Keep up those traditional ads and wonder why your company has a reputation for being disconnected and old-fashioned.
- Be the same. Never change. Keep on doing what you're doing. Don't bother to differentiate yourself from your competition; just stick with what you know. Never reach out.
- Be selfish. Refrain from giving your customers a chance to connect and do some good through your site. They'll just make those donations for hurricane relief or green housing somewhere else, right? No need for you to show support for the causes they care about through your own site or social networks--keep business business and personal personal. Never mind that people's lives are continually integrating the professional with the personal, with some for-profit businesses touting social entrepreneurship. Make sure that you refuse to connect with anything larger than yourself in your online presence; no one has to know that you really, secretly do care.
- Be afraid. Let your fear of loss of control of the conversation cause you to treat social media like traditional media. Insist on 100% control of everything you produce and keep channels closed so that when a PR crisis comes along, you have no connections, no credibility and nothing but slow, clunky methods of reacting publicly.
If you follow these steps, you'll be certain to have a dearth of Social Capital and a lack of credibility with the public, no matter how your company is currently perceived. And your company will find that participating in social media is a waste of time, no question!
