Excessive exuberance is the Achilles Heel of social media. We are in an age of experimentation, of learning and growth. There are few clearly defined rules of engagement and even fewer success metrics that have withstood the test of time. Because of the economic climate, social media is often considered a quick fix and a way to create value with little budget or staff. Too often the wrong definitions of success are celebrated – “We have thousands of followers on Twitter!” “We just launched a Facebook business account!” “There are comments on our blog!” Great. Perhaps. But did these “successes” help the company advance in a meaningful way? Who did you reach and what were their impressions and calls to action? Did you yield anything to help the company?
As social media is becoming entrenched in the business world, we must take a hard look at the expectations for social media and make sure they are tempered with the same rigor you would apply to a program that did not involve social media. There are many social media program failures around us, and it is just the beginning. There will be many more before we land at a place where social media is well integrated into the business value chain.
We need to treat social media with the respect and measures of any other true innovation project within the enterprise and stop pinning our hopes and dreams upon anecdotes and wishful thinking. We’ve seen excessive exuberance cycles before and they are often rooted in technology advancement. Take for example the advent of the web…. Every company sought to create a web site but few knew what they would do with it or how it would benefit their organization. Sure, the speculation was right- the web was and is transformative, but there were many casualties along the way of misguided ideas and silly businesses without a business plan.
Align the business goals with the user needs in order to properly match the features and functions offered with the purpose of the effort. For example, if your company’s focus is B2B – then you may be better served by creating an online community to serve your clients and serve as a way to expose thought leadership, product road maps, discover new product and service needs and desires etc. than to create a Facebook business account or launch a blog. In this case privacy and exclusivity matter more than broad reach. After all, do you really care if you have 10K followers if the majority doesn’t represent your audience?
WHO you endeavor to serve needs to dictate the How and the Why for the program. The art of choosing the right interactive model directly impacts its success. Once you can clearly define who you want to serve and in what ways, only then you can begin to identify the proper processes and outcomes of the effort in a measured and accountable way.
What are some of your authentic social media successes?
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Having read a number of books and articles by so-called Social Networking guru’s, I do agree that these people are a bit over exuberant about value Social media. Many seem to proclaim that this new media outlet will overtake all other types of media.
I recently posted a group discussion if people felt the two could co-exist. The results were not surprising with most agreeing that the use of any type of media needs to match the overall objective and target market.
Hi jgreen391,
thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment. I actually do, in some regards, think that social media – new media- will cease to be a category unto itself and will eventually be integrated into the business process.. not just as a marketing channel but as a transformative part of the way business is conducted. But, in order to make sense of it all, we must start to treat it with the dignity (and staffing, support, measures, and processes) with which it deserved 🙂
I saw your discussion launched on Linkedin and thought it surfaced some great insights! Well done.
Hello again Vanessa, Thanks for your note. I wanted to share something I wrote and added to my blog this morning. Thought it was related to “Excessive Exuberance”
Is there a Dark Side lurking in Social Media?
Yesterday morning I participated in a seminar discussing the virtues and benefits of using social media to help grow business. Ironically, later that evening while attending my last-ever curriculum night, I attended a meeting to discuss cyber bullying. Quite a contrast! The anger the parents demonstrated was intense, especially after the recent suicide by a high school girl at South Hadley HS. With all the push by “Social media pro’s” to grow your connections, how soon will it be that we hear that someone with wrong intentions is miss-using this ever expanding resource? Evidence shows that consumers will trust people (connections) at a much higher level than corporations. But what if those connections are not who they appear to be and what makes them the authority on the particular subject?
After I purchased my first computer in the early 90’s, I remember having to call customer service because my computer wouldn’t boot up or something. The first question the customer service person asked me was: “Is your computer plugged in?” With regards to Social Media, what if someone purchases your product with the assumption that they know all about it but it doesn’t work the way they anticipated. Some will call for technical assistance, but others may get angry and write a negative comment on Twitter. The point being that angry customer was not necessarily an authority but rather upset and not a fully informed customer who decided to vent their frustration.
Last night what I was seeing was fear in the minds of concerned parents. Was the fear founded? Most certainly. Was it warranted? Definitely. Is there a lesson to be learned here? I hope so. My concern is that crowd mentality can quickly turn into mob mentality. Perhaps one solution is to identify an easier way to qualify a response.
I am definitely getting more interested in the potential benefits of social media, and along with that, a strong interest a desire to keep an open mind. Bad people exist all around us. I hope that our exuberance to jump on the newest ship doesn’t result in a repeat of the same belief that the Titanic was un-sinkable.