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Is Social Media really working?

Submitted by ICONZ on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 13:21

Blog author: Sean McDonald (Former ICONZ CEO)

Its certainly A journey not a destination

OK Sean, when is this social media initiative going to pay off? I get this often from my board. Groan..

Seriously though, my board are a sharp bunch guys as you would expect but the ‘groan’ comes from me as the CEO not quite having the answers they want. Sound familiar?  What I do know categorically is that since we jumped into the social media whirlpool 10 months ago, our business has really kicked up a notch.
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So, for their next question, “what business can you directly attribute to your social media initiatives Sean?” again, groan, I cannot. But, I know it’s working and better still, our clients appreciate the now many open channels we have with them, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin. How do I know, our clients tell us, and yes via these channels, funny that!  
 
If you buy the party line, social media is going to do everything from increase the sales of every product under the sun, to breaking the grip of ruthless dictatorships around the world. As the hype grows to a fever pitch, you could be excused for thinking that riches, enlightenment, and the dawn of world peace in our time will come moments after you log in to Twitter for the first time. Sadly, this is far from the truth.
 
Social media is in that technical toddler stage, much like the Internet was in the early 90s. Back then the marketing technobobbles  told us that having a website .comthingamagiggy would deliver instant success and that god forbid, we would even sell stuff online. So too ring the claims of the Twitterphiles, Linkedinaroids and Facebookodelites. This hype too will subside over time, it always does.
 
So ten months into the social media whirlpool and I am hardly what you would call an expert, far from it. Never mind though, social media and blogging is all about speaking your mind and sharing knowledge so here is what I have learnt so far.

Handle with care

The assumption that you will attract dedicated followers in the social media space is generally correct, but that can be a double-edged sword. For example I receive all our social media feeds and as such, see the good bad and yes, the ugly. Shock horror you might say, yes the ugly comments are still out there. All social media does is get them to you quicker in a format sometimes not all that well thought out but in a way I see that as a good thing, you get everything raw. Remember to ‘crouch-touch – pause – then engage’ before belting out a response on the keyboard.  

Tweet, BLOG AND POST with original thought

If you intend to use the various social media channels to market yourself or your products, you must be a source of original content. Rather than obsessing over your number of followers or seeking to follow all the purported experts and pour over their posts as we did to start with, seek to generate quality, original content. With few exceptions, most of us are in the business of selling some sort of knowledge, whether it is a nuanced technical exposition or the emotive response you’ll feel as you rev the engine of a new sports car, and those who succeed in knowledge-based marketing are those who generate compelling content, not those who mindlessly parrot the thoughts of others or talk about the porridge they had this morning. 

Have a plan AND KEEP IT REAL

Like any marketing campaign, approach social media with a defined plan. Like many and much to my wife’s amusement (she still uses email), I use Facebook and Linkedin to keep track of old friends but also to interact with clients and potential clients and paint a slightly more “human” picture of our business and yes, for Facebook I do show the other side of the CEO. I am careful to avoid less savory pictures or references or expose highly personal details, but I do try to convey a sense that I am a relatively normal and fun-loving person, under the presumption that you are more likely to hire someone you like and can relate to. The other thing I have learnt to my amazment is the number of people in the younger years (18 - 30)that don't respond to email BUT, drop them a post on Facebook and bingo, you have them instantly. Ignore that one at your peril business aficionados’.

Get good advice, THEN GET SOME MORE

I remember when the Web was this new thing and every charlatan who could spell “HTML” suddenly became a “consultant” and charged outrageous fees for lacklustre or outright damaging advice. Well now, history is repeating itself all over again where one can hang out a virtual shingle on Twitter or Facebook, and overnight they’re a social media maven. Believe me, when we started, we found a few of these. Mostly though we watched, listened and silently formed a view of how we saw ourselves in the social media world and started developing our strategy.  We also stumbled across a real down to earth social media practitioner in Linda Coles from BlueBanana.co.nz who was a great help to our business and still is today.

From experience then, my advice is to approach any advisor with a healthy dose of scepticism, especially if they’re unable to tie the purported wonders of social media to concrete results for your particular business, in a manner that is understandable and rational. Trust your gut, and if a proposed effort likely would not work in a more traditional medium, the “magic” of social media is unlikely to save it.

Keep the faith

Like all things, the good stuff takes time. A famous kiwi is on record saying as much, “it won’t happen overnight but it will happen”.  Such is true for social media. It wasn’t long ago where we laughed at the thought of paying more per litre of bottled water than fuel (sadly this is true), mobile phones came out of the brief cases and into the hands of 10 year olds (sometimes two at a time), google was something your baby did in its sleep, ...and on it goes.

Social media is a journey not a destination. It is just another channel by which to communicate and maybe, the channels we use today will not be the same tomorrow. From my own experience through lessons learnt, feedback from customers and the many ears we now have to the ground that measure our business health, it is a journey worth taking. 

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