courtesy: Hugh McLeod Gaping void
Social media presents enormous opportunities for small businesses to connect with their customers in ways not imaginable just a few years ago.
However, like every new tool that comes along, it can be misused and certainly abused, and is certain to be touted by carpetbaggers. Considering the following list may save you some heartache.
- It will not address failings in your band positioning and execution. Get those right, and Social media can be a great addition, but it will not backfill the failures of creative, customer and problem focused strategic thinking.
- It will not make your brand interesting to potential customers who are not interested in what you have to offer.
- It cannot help you when all you talk about is yourself. People are more interested in themselves than in you, and unless you grapple with and answer the “What’s in it for me” question, you will end up talking to yourself.
- It cannot guarantee to go viral. Very few things go viral, it is like winning the lottery, the more tickets, the greater the chance, but each ticket has the same chance as all the others.
- It will not make up for poor content. In fact, poor content can kill any potential success your strategy may have, stone dead.
- It does not operate in an objectiveless world, so cannot deliver on objectives you have failed to articulate and plan for.
- It will not compensate for poor customer service. In fact, one of the great things is that those with poor customer service will be exposed quicker than ever, and go broke, reducing the ‘noise’ in the market.
- It rarely seems to ignore the things you may rather have it ignore, like lousy customer service.
- It will not change the world, although there is evidence that it can make a major contribution in that direction.
- It is not free. Posting of social platforms may be free, but there is considerable effort and many challenges before you will have any chance of being noticed. That effort will incur at least opportunity cost if you do it yourself, or professional costs if you outsource.
- It does not just happen. Being good at leveraging the opportunities of Social media is like anything else, you can only get out after you have put in. Success always takes take considerable effort.
The message is that social media is not the panacea for anything, not a silver bullet for any problem, it is just a tool in the marketing toolbox. It might be new and shiny, and seemingly changing daily, and being touted as the next big thing, which to some extent it is, but it remains just a means to an end, not the end itself.
