Why social media strategy should NOT start with a drive for Facebook fans
Aug 12th
Why does every social media strategy seemingly start with a company cajoling people to come “like” their Facebook page? This post will explain why that is usually a bad strategy if you are aiming at creating long-term, loyal customers.
I’ve been honored to be selected to help judge a global company’s internal social media competition. Entries were submitted from all over the country as their locations put forward their best shots at social media gold.
There were some interesting entries, even some very good ones, but they all had one thing in common. In the “objectives” section, every single organization stated something like this:
“Our goal is to enter the conversation with our customers and engage with them on our Facebook page.”
Last week I wrote about how our relationships with brands develop over time through many small interactions that create awareness, affection, trust, and eventually a loyal relationship … similar to the way we create friendships in real life.
When I was a kid, it took quite a few interactions at school or on the playground before I was invited to go home after school and play at a friend’s house. And it would get kind of boring if my friend never came to my house. You expect that kind of reciprocity in a relationship, right?
The one thing missing in almost any social media strategy I see is a plan for company representatives to actually go spend some time at the customer’s “house” — 100 percent of the effort is usually aimed at the very difficult task of drawing those eyes to THEIR page, their home, every day instead of visiting customers where THEY “live.”
If the true goal is customer connection, why does it have to start on your own Facebook page?
Why is the metric for success always the number of comments or likes you have on your page, rather than the number of likes and comments your company gives away on other pages? Shouldn’t the effort be at least equal?
This default position of driving people to your page is easy because it is so much simpler measuring your “likes” and comments as a metric of success. It’s the popular thing to do, but I’d like you to start questioning if it is the RIGHT thing to do for a long-term strategy. Check out this diagram and see if this makes sense:
Relationships start with small interactions — and you probably have to go to where your customers are at first. As they get interested in you, maybe they will start coming to your site where they may connect in a bigger way, and eventually bring their friends as they turn into fans.
If you’re sincerely trying to drive people up this curve (and not just “check the Facebook box”), why would you have a strategy that only involves buying likes with coupons and contests? Maybe you need to go visit their house a few times first and get to know them on their terms, too!
(Note: Based on some reader comments, I wanted to clarify that visiting a customer’s “house” may not necessarily be Facebook. It could be their blog, Twitter account, LinkedIn, etc. — it’s where they “spend their time” on the web).
Of course there are many different ways to be successful on the social web and lots of companies are doing great things on their Facebook pages, but I wanted to introduce the idea that it doesn’t necessarily have to start with a “drive for likes”
Have you had similar experiences? Do you ever connect with your customers on their home base Facebook page, blog, or LinkedIn account?
Top illustration courtesy of Toothpaste for Dinner
Mars Landing, social media style. A {growtoon}.
Aug 10th
Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events.
Joey Strawn is a social media strategist that loves enjoying a good book and then drawing in it. Check him out on Twitter: @joey_strawn
Adopting a Piggly Wiggly View of Social Media
Aug 9th
By {grow} Community Member Lou Hoffman
Companies understand the intellectual argument for embracing the digital world. Prospects, job candidates and other target audiences increasingly conduct due diligence on the Net before making decisions.
That’s the easy part. Most marketing execs get this and the need to come up the digital curve.
But expertise by itself isn’t the game changer.
Mark hit the nail on the head in a recent post: “… social media success is not going to be a function of marketing vision or budget. It’s going to rely on radical organizational transformation.”
Amen.
But this transformation goes deeper than org charts, training and replacing the Friday jelly donuts. I think the game changer lies in companies changing from a mentality of centralized control to one that cultivates a distributed approach of digital actions.
Getting Past the Fright
This is a scary proposition. I can hear the lament echoing in the corporate corridors:
“It’s tough enough that our comms team is deploying social media that generates real conversations, dialogue we can’t always anticipate and with people we don’t always know. And now you expect us to proactively put these tools in the hands of amateurs. Borrowing from Match Box 20, you might not be crazy, but you’re certainly unwell.”
The shift away from a command and control model always causes heartburn.
When the Piggly Wiggly invented the self-serve grocery store, the common wisdom was that customers would steal them blind. The idea of picking your own groceries from the shelves instead of ordering from a single counter was viewed as totally radical in the day.
As it turned out, people lived up to the trust.
Last year we went through the exercise of helping a client CMO sell the idea of a hybrid decentralized model – select employees from all functions across the company would be trained and guided in social media – to the rest of the executive management team. The CEO put the kibosh on the proposal. His rationale – as a public company, they carefully scripted what they’re going to say during each quarterly earnings call and the last thing they needed was some guy in procurement tanking the stock price with an off-hand tweet.
Being a glass-is-half-full type, I told the CMO this is a good start. At least your CEO knows what a tweet is.
Here’s the part the CEO hasn’t figured out.
It Comes Down to Trust
If Piggly Wiggly can trust customers, you can trust your employees. With the right training and guidance, their use of social media will become a net positive and expand the company’s digital footprint.
A few companies have the right spirit.
My favorite example of an organization willing to give up control in exchange for the multiplier effect of social media is the Department of Defense. In fact, the DoD established a SlideShare platform to support the rank and file on topics ranging from how to tweet to tips and tools for YouTube.
Look, I don’t pretend to have all the answers on how a company can harness the collective power of its employees in deploying social media.
But I do know this. If companies don’t start rethinking their centralized mindset, trusting their employees and trying new things, the answers will never come.
Lou Hoffman spearheads a global communications consultancy and writes about storytelling through a business prism at Ishmael’s Corner. You can follow him on Twitter @LouHoffman.
Andy Warhol on social media
Aug 8th
I’ve often wondered what would happen if a great creative mind of the past came into our present world to see how we create and communicate today. Here’s my imagined conversation with Andy Warhol, whose creativity extended to almost every medium of his time. Here is his introduction to Facebook, after being asleep for nearly 25 years …
Me: Welcome to the future Mr. Warhol. That thing in front of you is an iPad and with that you can instantly connect with people from all over the world through Facebook.
Andy: The device is sleek and beautiful. But this Facebook looks stupid. How do you read this? Everything is small and crammed together. Why would you limit your personal expression to these little boxes?
Me: It does have a terrible interface but I guess it makes up for it in your ability to connect instantly with ideas and people from all over the world.
Andy: It looks to me like it is mostly cats, jokes, and inane self-help sayings.
Me: Well … true. People like to have fun with this. It’s a good creative outlet.
Andy. I see little creativity here. People keep sharing the same jokes and photos over and over again. I would use this tool to bring people together to discuss new ideas — to find the odd things that make you think. Sort of a creative salon like we had in New York.
Me: Well, the odd things probably don’t make it to your news feed. Only the most popular ideas appear.
Andy: And who is determining what is popular?
Me: Facebook. They edit your newsfeed and only show the items with the most likes and comments.
Andy: So an unpopular viewpoint is suppressed? New ideas stay buried?
Me: Not always. Sometimes a new idea catches fire and goes viral. In fact, it’s an amazing opportunity for new artists to become known internationally. Like … umm … Justin Bieber.
Andy: Not exactly a creative revolution, is it? And how does Facebook stay in business?
Me: They collect all of your personal information and create targeted ads for their advertisers.
Andy: And do they give you a share of the money?
Me: No, in return you get to use their service for free.
Andy: So they own your very art, your writing, your photography, and anything you post … and sell this information for their own economic gain?
Me: Yes, that’s it.
Andy: That will never work. People would never let them do that. (distracted) Now what’s this thing?
Me: An iPhone. Most people are using this, or something like it, to connect on Facebook.
Andy: This small screen makes the thing even worse, doesn’t it? How can one expect to create something in a space this small? Do people really use this thing?
Me: Oh yes. Some people spend several hours a day typing into their mobile device and viewing content.
Andy: Fascinating. (lighting a cigarette) It seems inhuman. They do this of their own free will … or is this some kind of … punishment?
Me: Oh this is by their choice. In fact, it’s common to be using this device even when you are physically with your friends. Today, this is by far the most popular way to see art, photos, and videos.
Andy: Seriously? On this screen that is smaller than your hand? This is how people see the world? So these digital artists now have to create their greatest works … to be viewed on this little device?
Me: Well, yes. For a lot of creative work today … that’s true.
Andy: So let me get this straight. The world’s most popular way to communicate is though a company that is collecting all of your most private information and profiting from it. You are being forced to create your content in unreadable little boxes. The company censors what you see and suppresses everything except the most popular ideas. People are tethered to communication devices that track your movements and your beautiiful art and motion pictures are relegated to a space that fits in the palm of your hand.
This is a nightmare.
I’m almost afraid to ask this question. Did all of this come about because of a war that happened while I was asleep? Did the Communists win?
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