love hate social media
Once again social media has amazed me this week. Here’s what happened: Someone friended me on Facebook that I haven’t seen for 30 odd years. I can’t believe how old she looks and realised that goes for me too. I finally got around to updating my LinkedIn profile, and now have a meeting with someone that I should have called months ago. My wife has gotten a number of orders for her business and a new export contact through her involvement in Facebook. A potential client knows he needs to have social media as part of his business but is unsure why or how. After being very active on Twitter personally, I finally bite the bullet and set up a profile for my business. Grudgingly, it already somehow feels a lot less fun. Another client is happy for his business to engage in social media, but is very concerned about his personal privacy in the process. I look at another client’s web logs and can’t ignore the simple fact that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) outperforms their social media efforts at a rate of 10 to 1. Although, it shouldn’t be, the SEO has almost no monthly cost but the social media has very real costs to their business. I find 3 new brilliant bands through friends on Twitter and LastFM. I’m meeting friends later for drinks that I met through Twitter. 10. I get irritated by 3 companies who are using social media in very blatant, facile and self-serving ways. I’ll remember who they are and try and use their competitors. I write a post about social media. Once again, I can’t help but be astounded how polarised I feel about this phenomenon. Personally I’m an avid user of social media but find myself having many reservations about its role in business. If a friend or family member asks for advice on social media I gush on all the things they should and can do, if a client asks about social media I gush on all the things they should be careful of. For me the debate on social media’s role in business is still very much open.
It’s everywhere isn’t it? I don’t know why you are still ‘very much open’ on whether or not it has a role. It definitely does and any business that ignores it does so at their own peril.
Fuzzy, I agree that companies can’t ignore social media. Why would you want to anyway?
My point is more about what is an appropraite role for social media to play within the context of business. Call me grumpy, but I’m getting tired of mindless spend on social media when I see the actual financial value that it returns – it just not that high. Having been involved in websites for large corporates for a while now, over the while I have seen them temper their spend on their online channel. Spend seems to be tied to the value of the website within the business. This is not so with social media – companies are spending money that I simply don’t see a return on.
Also, without having an excellent product and really committing to communicating with your customers, social medai can also just be plain dangerous.
What I love about social media is that it has a potential to create a dialougue between a busines and it’s customers. What more could you ask for? Unfortunately I also don’t see a lot of listening happening from business. They are more happy for social media to play a marketing role rather than a customer service one. Maybe it’s more comfortable that way.
Thought I would add that for smaller companies that have a great product, and that the owner can spend the time on interacting with his customers, I unreservedly recommend using social media in all its forms.
I’ve seen the value it delivers first hand.