Social Media

Just about every brand I know and virtually every company I’ve spoken to fails to grasp what social media really is. As a result the majority of them do it wrong. Given the fact that I’ve written a book on the subject I want to avoid having to write another one here. Nevertheless the challenges are so real and the mistakes being made so obvious that I feel if we cover some basics it will benefit you directly.

In The Social Media Mind I wrote: “Social media is the empowerment of the individual at the expense of the system .” A decade later we have sufficient evidence to perhaps marvel at just how prescient that description has been.

Social media continues to do just that. It empowers the individual allowing them to make their voice heard. In the chapter titled “Trust, Loyalty and Reputation” in my book on trust (which you can download for free here ) I cited the example of three articles on social media that in their totality accurately capture the hopes, desires, mistakes and confusion of brands in social media.

Each, on its own, tells a story but put together they spell out a disaster that’s still playing out today. Before we go any further, check them out first and see what you think:

In the intervening years since my book (and these articles) were published the situation has got worse, not better and I know that intuitively this is something you all feel. In understanding why we also get to deconstruct the problem and discover its solution.

Social Media Is An Interactive Channel

For a start the word ‘social’ alongside media confuses brands. The word “media” makes matters worse. They think social means that the “we’re buds” card is what’s required while the word media activates the business-as-usual, mass-channel communication mode.

If you consider that in 2011 all this was new, we were all still learning and social media disasters of the kind related below were, well, understandable if not quite excusable, then we have to be in a much less forgiving mood for the snafus we come across each day today.

To avoid writing reams and reams on this I shall get straight to the point. Social media turns the traditional power structure of brand-to-customer on its head. The brand goes seeking engagement in a highly interactive medium. This makes it vulnerable (which is where trust comes in). The need for engagement makes it more likely that inconsistencies will show up, making the brand look inauthentic. In a day and age when social media accounts are run by more than one person, the need for internal consistency in terms of values, beliefs and expectations inside a business is key to what is portrayed outside.

Despite all this a brand will never win business by being a ‘friend’ to its target audience. A brand is a means to an end. It provides a solution to a problem or a piece of the puzzle that someone uses to curate their avowed identity. As such it is only as good as it serves that role and its social media presence is there to actually satisfy these needs.

So if you’re active in social media (which you should be) ask yourself if you’re doing the following:

1. Explaining the problem to which your business is a solution.
2. Helping those who use your brand as part of their identity to feel good about their choices.
3. Engaging with your audience in a way that helps them feel points 1. and 2. more strongly.
4. You’re doing all this consistently every day, across all social media platforms through different types of content.

If you’re not doing all this, in this way, you’re setting yourself up to lose valuable time and resources without much to show for it and you/re making your brand vulnerable to social media snafus that will hurt its reputation.

To make it easier to do all this of course you need to know, as a business or brand who you are, what you stand for and why you’re in business beyond the obvious need to make money.

Easy? What do you think? ?