A guest post by Chester Frazier of Definition Systems.
When I, as a chief technology officer, put together an organization’s strategic technology plan and get down to the web-presence section, I typically inquire about their current efforts. Usually, I hear that they have a Facebook page. But when I visit the page, I see: a page that hasn’t been touched by anyone other than spammers or a complete running history of their promotions for the past 6 months, with employees the only ones “Liking” it.
That’s a missed opportunity. But when I ask about why they don’t invest more time and effort, I usually get one of the following five excuses:
1. “Our target audience is not on Facebook and Twitter.”
I usually hear this when their target audience is 50+. I used to buy it—and then Farmville came along. I cannot tell you how many Farmville requests I get daily from farmers of all ages.
2. “I would like my staff to concentrate on more important things than playing on Facebook all day.”
Said another way: “How do I know they are working on things related to the organization and not personal stuff?” Fair enough. But business owners and managers need to realize, we are in 2011. The time for micro-managers in a small-business environment is over! If you are that concerned over the effectiveness of your hires, you may want to take a look at your hiring process.
3. “We tried it; it didn’t work.”
The problem of course, is that the approach is all wrong. You didn’t try interacting with your audience on Facebook or Twitter, you tried advertising to them. But at that point, I usually just hand them a copy of Power Friending by Amber Mac (@ambermac), Unmarketing by Scott Stratton (@unmarketing), or Content Rules by C.C. Chapman and MarketingProfs’ own Ann Handley.
4. “We are just too busy.”
I would like to steal a line from one of those books for this excuse. Imagine we replaced the term social media with talking. “We are just too busy to talk to people about what we do.” (Insert a blank stare.)
5. Lastly, my favorite: “Could you do it for us?”
I often hear this from the old-school business people who are used to delegating every bit of work out and not doing a thing themselves. It’s great to hire outside content creators, but I’m not necessarily the guy for the job. If it were to be a product or service I don’t know anything about—for instance a doctor’s office—I could imagine my response to a Facebook wall post: “My son is sick. What should I do?” My answer: “Ummm, did you try rebooting him?”
*****
So how about you? Are your clients using social media? What excuses do you hear, and how do you respond?
Chester Frazier is the CEO of Definition Systems. Follow him on Twitter.
Tags: customers, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0
“Did you try rebooting him?” Hahahaha – nicely done!
Reboot hourly until better…if not fixed within 24 hours, buy a new child
So glad you liked it!!!!!
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Your customers, clients, business partners and prospects may not be using Facebook or Twitter. But they do text, all the time, and they have their phones with them more than their computer. So a mobile messaging strategy will be much more effective.
The new mobile social media must: blend with the consumers’ real-life activities; respect their privacy; enhance shared experiences; and offer new and improved features to capitalize on existing behaviors, such as texting and IM.
The best and most effective mobile marketing will tell a story, keep the conversations real, bring people together, create shared experiences around the brand’s story, and deliver these results.
You talk about respecting a consumer’s privacy, but tout the effectiveness of a mobile messaging strategy? What’s more invasive than a solicitors text? Social Media is not just made up of Facebook and Twitter, there are many platforms to engage demographics across the board. I have found that most demographics who are hard to reach online are not reaching for their cell phones and “text, all the time”.
Chester, you nailed the top five excuses right on the head, although I would swap #4 with #1. Busy is the number one excuse I hear in the marketplace. Thanks for the great article!
Thanks, Scott!
Regarding people being too busy, if you think about it, we only deem things as “too busy to do” when we don’t think of them as important…I think if more people saw the rewards of a great social media strategy first hand, they would place it as more of a priority.
I do have to agree with you with the mobile messaging argument. I just think it was too intrusive for most consumers and people forget that not everyone has unlimited text messaging. Unlike email, users have the potential to get charged to receive that text blast. Plus text messages are way more personal than email so when someone gets a text, it better be “good” and just not another ad. My humble opinion………
This post is great and coincides with my experience with clients as well.
The only difference is that as a marketer…these comments drive me CRAZY!!
Good job…good post!
Ted Green
The Stratecon Group, Inc./Strategic Concepts in Marketing
Thanks, Ted!
Ahhh if everyone agreed this world would be a pretty dull place
I am just getting into consulting on Social Media, and have noticed that most Retail Stores completely miss the point of having a Facebook Fan page. Little to no meaningful content, just lots of ‘ You should buy this!’ ‘Hurry in for our great Sale’ SELL SELL SELL, is not the point. Retailers have to start looking at the bigger picture…thanks for the great article…You said it all.
I agree because thats the type of “media” they’re used to…….push push push!
I think this is a really interesting article especially with the new Facebook Deals lauching that will enable smaller business to market their products directly to the consumer.
Chester, I can relate to each and every reason you have sighted. Here’s another one I have heard: “It’s too risky to let employees play around with our brand in public.” Partly they are true. But as you rightly said, if you believe your employees are not capable of handling your brand, then there’s something wrong with the hiring process. Great post!
I feel very fortunate to have clients that are onboard with social media. As we are still in the intermediate stages of their social media progress, there are naturally still lots of questions being asked about social media platforms and best practices. At the beginning stages, some questioned the relevancy of having a LinkedIn company profile or a Twitter account. Our clients cater to a very niche market – B2B technology – and so developing highly focused strategies that pinpoint key individuals and companies to follow on Twitter and LinkedIn as well as Groups and Answer categories has been essential. By providing our clients with focused strategies and that deliver real results, we have demonstrated to them that social media is a real asset. Our clients are busy too, but we have avoided this excuse by supporting their social media efforts by doing the heavy lifting. We go through heaps of online content daily and pick out the pieces that are most relevant to our clients. We can even draft the comments and answers for their response. Social media is still new to a lot of us. The more support we offer each other, the fewer justifiable excuses.
Thank you for sharing this information. This is an interesting post. I can really relate to the first post where people make an excuse and think their ‘target audience’ is not one twitter. I am (@richbartell) studying Internet marketing with @dr4ward at Western Michigan University and this is a really great discussion to bring up during class.
Let’s play the devil’s advocate here:
Why is every business argument the author hears that is contrary to his pre-determined social media bias dismissed as an excuse?
To date, the research overwhelmingly shows that social media have primarily PR and brand values, but are not so effective as direct sales tool. And let’s be clear–in a recession like this one, our clients expect us all to be salesmen.
So while the Fortune 500 may be able to pontificate on subtle image values gained through social media, most real businesses need to boost their bottom line. Now. If Mr Frazier can show us how social media can actually do that today, this sidebar about “excuses” would be unnecessary.
Our clients are serious people trying to prosper in a difficult environment. Generally they don’t waste time with excuses, nor with secondary marketing tools that to date have only proven to impact image and long-term values, not sales.
There is a place for social media, but our current absorption with it in the marketing community, at the expense of almost everything else that boosts the bottom line may be inappropriate. We advise our clients to take a more balanced approach that responds to this economy.
Sandy Prisant/COO
Prism Ltd.
Sandy,
Your comment was well written but I believe it contains a fallacy. We social media advocates see social media as a tool to let us engage with our community in a whole new way. You present your argument with social media being a direct sales tool. Even though we may not have sales directly affiliated with social media, this new medium allows us to constantly conversate and interact with our customers on a day to day basis versus just telling them what to buy.
I’m in the service industry and every time we have needed to “boost our bottom line” we look at ways we can provide value to people versus just being louder than the next guy.
Our bottom line has always been a direct reflection of how strong our relationships are with our clients. I can’t speak for the products industry because I haven’t been there but if I had to choose if I could talk to a room for of potential clients individually or show them an ad, I would much rather talk to them.
Conversate?
It was mentioned that social media is “this new medium (that) allows us to constantly coversate (uh, that would be “converse”) and interact with our customers.” I get that. Kind of. I’m just not sure how much of that coversating is really being paid attention to by customers. There are other ways – including phone conversating, one-on-one sales calls, contact to just check in with a customer to see how the product/brand is meeting expectations or not – to develop and strengthen realtionships. Real conversating. Not from a keyboard.
In Jurassic Park there’s a great line delivered by Jeff Goldblum re: the ability of science to re-created the dinosaurs on the island. “Just because we can…should we?”
As far as social media goes companies large and small should ask themselves the same question: just because it’s there should we participate? Seems that a ton of people with a computer, website and Twitter and Facebook accounts are self-proclaimed “Gurus” about social media marketing. And I hear the same thing over and over again from all of them about building relationships, conversating and customer interaction. It’s a mantra that’s getting tiresome.
If you go back to look at Twitter profiles of “average businesses” – not the Fords, Dells, Coke’s and Best Buys of the world – but the guy/woman down the street with a small/growing business and look at their content (provided it’s not all “Buy me! Buy me!” messages) my observations are that there isn’t much conversating going on.
At some point the online “talking” has to stop and the customer has to reach for their wallet.
Social media evangelists have drunk the Kool-Aid. We all need to remember that someone had to sell it to them.
Losers conversate. Winners are capturing more sales, more often using social media marketing. Selling someone something doesn’t require engagement, conversation and a relationship; rather engagement, conversation and relationships are created by selling them something!
I’ve found that there are 3 practical success principles that always get results: Focusing social media marketing on behavior, translating customers’ evolving needs, and publishing useful tools and services. That’s how social media sells.
Gurus aren’t helping us steer clear of pitfalls. They are the pitfalls. Example: “influencing the influencers” may not be The Holy Grail that gurus say it is. Behavior is often a more **practical** (actionable) tool to induce sales.
Again, I’m discovering successful marketers are reaching beyond listening to customers — they’re translating customers’ evolving needs. Then prompting customers to “signal” what they’re most interested in, when, where and why — and this is leading to more sales. Less conversating
Social media is about selling via publishing useful, relevant tools and information that fit customers’ buying contexts. And designing marketing processes that guide customers toward destinations they choose – your products and services.
I believe one of the reasons so many companies are reluctant to move into social media is all the self-proclaimed “experts” in the marketplace.
It seems as if all one need do is master a few Twitter apps, have a nice Facebook page, and read a couple of books about blogging to become a social media consultant.
What happened to having a solid background and actual experience in corporate marketing?
D.K.,
Yes.
Thank you.
Per Cathy’s comment on some retailers, the big reason I see some businesses not using social – or using it effectively – is that they just don’t get it. They want to use it like traditional broadcast, don’t try to understand it. I still quibble that ALL businesses and brands need to be on FB and Twitter, and part of that is b/c while their customers may be playing a game they’re also finding ways to block or avoid marketing. The other part of that is #5. The second you tell someone they can’t automate, “set it and forget it” they try to staff it out without understanding it. Being social which means you have to do the work, put in the time, tell your story b/c you know it best. You’re doctor/rebooting thing a hilarious example. FWIW.
One concern I’ve heard many times from businesses about Twitter is they end up attracting a large number of followers who are in the same or related businesses. For example, a business in the solar energy industry. Out of 1,500 followers the company has the overwhelming majority of followers were solar, wind, geo-thermal, DIY alternative energy businesses along with a smattering of “green” people, vegans, etc. Same thing with F’book. The solar business could have cared less about talking to other businesses in their industry. There weren’t going to be any new business opportunities with any of these folks…the majority of followers weren’t going to recommend the company’s products because they were competitors…etc. Management felt the Twitter and Facebook efforts resulted in the company “talking to itself.” The solar company wanted to reach real prospects v. talking to “like minded” businesses and it was tough to break out of the solar industry “wall” of alternative energy followers. As it turned out the solar company had much greater success with traditional media and PR. When the company and products were featured on a major network newscast the phones rang off the hook and the company website was barraged with inquiries that turned into sales. PR and vertical industry media reached the management of commercial real estate. They reached people making decisions about solar products for local, state and federal government buildings. They helped reach the hospitality industry, home builders and remodelers. PR and traditional mediaIt were marketing tactics that touched the target audience with a relevant message delivered at the right time. Did social media help spread the word about the news story? Sure. Did folks pass the story along to family and friends via social? Yes. But Twitter and F’book were not effective tactics for driving product inquiries or building “relationships.” For companies marketing niche products – putting your marketing eggs into the Twitter and F’book basket might not be the best allocation of resources. Businesses have to make sure other efforts are also in place.
[...] and one would think that’s all there is in marketing. But, the comments on a recent MarketingProfs guest blog post by Chester Frazier, has given me hope that there are others out there like me – those who [...]
I guess I’m in a lucky position that my clients come to me wanting to implement a social media program, even if they’re not quite sure what that means.
What I find though, is that while they want to have a program, they’re not always ready for it. In order for the program to be successful, the company, no matter how small or large, needs to be ready to share real information and not just sell. I would say that the biggest problems tend to be that lack of participation by all appropriate people/departments holds back the program.
But, even for those who are mostly listening and responding, we find that we’re making a real difference for brand awareness and creating a positive image for the company.