Social media: striking out?
POSTED BY KARIN PINDLE, ASTADIA, INC. ON SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) all over the world are scratching their heads over how to win the social media marketing game.
It’s a game all marketers should be participating in. How you hit a home run is a science but how you strike out is quite basic. In the game of baseball, you can’t just step up to the plate with any bat and swing for the fence. You have to understand what bat fits you best, how to hold the bat, how to swing, where to stand – it’s a science. But how you strike out? You swing and miss three times.
With social media marketing, the same holds true – hitting a home run involves a mix of techniques while striking out is all too easy.
Need to start hitting some singles? See if you’ve got one of the Strikes in your strategy.
1. Allow anyone and everyone within your organization to do whatever they want on social media sites.
It’s your duty to understand the power of social media and how it can positively and negatively affect your organization’s image. The negative ramifications will fall on your shoulders when Employee John Doe tweets about your organization’s issues. This can expose issues you did not want made public which can hurt your brand image, negatively impact employee morale, upset investors, encourage customers to question your brand and possibly look to your competitors, etc. Your employees may not understand the impact of their social media activities so it’s your job as CMO to communicate a clear social media policy.
2. Hire a marketer who’s savvy on social sites without requiring they have experience in online marketing.
It’s your job to hire talented marketers. With social media marketing, it’s even more important because hiring the wrong marketer can hurt your brand fast and furiously. Let’s say Mary posts a YouTube video that no one else saw or approved first. Social media marketing involves a fundamental understanding of marketing and without it, Mary simply may not understand how her actions can hurt your brand both externally and internally. The bottom line is that your job is on the line if one of your marketers makes a big enough social media marketing mistake.
3. Tweet every day about your company only with no personal mix or opinions. And just let anyone follow you.
No personal mix in tweeting can easily lead followers to get bored with you which means they might stop following you altogether. You also miss out on one of the key benefits of tweeting – developing a positive, personal relationship with your followers (clients, prospects, partners, employees, etc.). And by just letting anyone follow you, you do not portray that you care about those following you/your brand – you only care about being followed or heard and are not as attuned to listening.
4. Allow your target audience to hunt for you in vain in the social world.
People frequently go to social sites to research products and services before they buy. If you are not found, it’s almost as bad as being found with negative feedback. You can also easily lose sales to your competitors if they have a strong social media presence and yours is undernourished. Thus, there can even be a financial loss (closed-loss opps) if your brand isn’t easy to find in the social world. And be assured that Sales Management will make their complaints heard that Marketing is not doing its job should they lose an opportunity tied to social media, or lack thereof.
5. Send your team to get you on every social media site possible.
You’re underestimating, under-staffing, and therefore under-budgeting the ongoing time investment to build networks of connections and nurture relationships in social media. And your staff will likely feel overwhelmed and frustrated which will not aid in their overall performance. There is a such thing as doing too much social media marketing because you can lose sight of the main objectives you’re held accountable for.
Stay tuned for my next blog post to find out how you can recover from striking out and start hitting home runs!
Comments
POSTED BY DAVID H. DEANS ON SEPTEMBER 28, 2009
Karin, Most CMOs that are schooled in legacy mass-marketing techniques are going to struggle the most with the shift to social media, and associated content marketing strategy development. BTW, it's not a "game" that you can win. You can, however, participate if you're savvy enough to experiment.
POSTED BY KARIN PINDLE ON SEPTEMBER 29, 2009
Thanks for the comment, David! You're right - the legacy mass-marketers I've worked with do struggle the most with the shift to SM. I believe the best way to educate them is by citing clear examples where SM works such as ComcastCares on Twitter. It's definitely a different kind of marketing and not easy for everyone to grasp but it's vital if your target audience is on SM sites. And many buyers are! Many use SM sites in the 'research' phase and then visit your site and/or contact you. Like you said, you just have to be savvy enough to experiment.
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