How To Avoid Social Media Fails

I turned on my radio this morning and heard the on-air personalities talking about Twitter.  I was intrigued.  But my intrigue quickly dried up when one of the hosts loudly proclaimed that he was going to be forced to start a Twitter account by the radio station, as were all the other show hosts.  He went on to call the service “lazy,” and harped on the oft-touted statistic that many users on the site are only active for about a month.

I say great job to the radio station for wanting to expand their social media presence.  The real hidden value of social, after all, is the ability to cultivate and integrate a brand presence across diverse media.  But they’ve already damaged their campaign before it’s begun because of a disgruntled employee.  I don’t expect that this is going to have disastrous, long-term negative consequences; the sky isn’t going to fall, but caustic remarks are going to prevent some listeners from connecting online, either because they won’t investigate the technology being employed or because they are existing users who are put off (like me).

Getting your business online is a great idea - I cannot stress that enough - and developing a social strategy is an important part of that.  To avoid doing it poorly, pay attention to these tips.

1. Identify Your Customer - When spitballing a plan to invade Facebook or Twitter, give some thought to who you want to connect with in those spaces.  How do they use your product?  How are they using social media?  If you’re doing email marketing already, send out a brief survey as an email blast and take a look at the data.

2. Bridge The Gap Between Brand And Customer - This is something that should ideally happen before you even create a login on a social network.  Once you know your customer’s usage habits (both on the web and of your business), look for synergies that you can enhance or maybe even create that will improve the way you and your customers interact.

3. Find Your Person - Look inside your company and find your social media person (or people).  You’re bound to have one, even if that isn’t their job title.  Don’t turn over the keys to them, at least not immediately, but get their feedback and listen to it (even if you don’t follow their recommendations, listen).  This person is serious about your company and about the tools that you’re planning to use, so trust what they have to say.

4. Launch - Once you have a core of enthusiastic, invested users and a sound strategy for how you’re going to employ them, open the gates.  As your empowered advocates become more visible and create success stories, they will inspire other employees to become social media people themselves.  Instead of an across the board “You all have to be on Facebook” initiative, let your team choose to be there instead - they are your ambassadors online, so you need to have motivated volunteers.  They will be happy about it, the naysayers will be happy they don’t have to condense their brilliant, extravagant writing into 140 character snippets, and your customers won’t be getting mixed signals from you.

A lot of the team here at Solid Cactus is active in social media - the entire IM team is on Twitter, for instance - but it’s because we’re all passionate about it.  The Internet is our product, so why wouldn’t we be?  With some thought and preparation, you can prevent social media snafus before they start.