If your friends were jumping off a bridge would you follow them? How many times have mothers asked this question of their children? I now pose a similar question to you. If everyone has a Twitter page shouldn’t you? The correct answer to both questions is, NO*.
Social media discussion is dominating marketing meetings these days. Team members are asking questions like:
- Should we? (All too often the answer is yes)
- Facebook or Twitter? Both?
- Who’s going to manage it, Bill in accounting?
What about WHY? I rarely hear this one and it is the most important question to ask yourself when considering a social media strategy. Why are we doing this? You need to answer this question. Then follow it up with – Are we committed to this space? Nothing turns prospective (and existing) customers off like a poorly planned and executed social media efforts.
The reality is that the efforts we see falling short are not due to lack of desire but to the inherent difficulty in measuring results. Frankly, it’s hard to tell if you are succeeding and therefore harder and harder to sustain momentum. I recommend you take a look at this approach to social media measurement from Razorfish - it might just be a standard we can agree on.
Peer adoption doesn’t make something right. I’m sure a lot of people regret having mullets, buying acid washed jeans and giving a Grammy to Milli Vanilli. So, before you engage in social media make sure it does at least the following:
- Works for your target audience
- Works for your brand
- Works for your marketing objectives
If you have to shoe-horn an answer for any of these maybe social media isn’t the right tactic for you right now.
*Unless you and your friends are professional bungee jumpers.
Tags: facebook, marketing objectives, media strategy, social media, social media marketing, twitter
