Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart

From the category archives:

Opinion

Why Most Social Media Departments Fail

October 25, 2011

A few years ago, a colleague of mine was given a tremendous responsibility to oversee the social media department at a prestigious well known NYC-based public relations firm. Less than a year later, she was sent packing up her desk, a casualty of a company that jumped into that shiny toy syndrome that people call social media.

As more companies jump into social media, they, too, hear that “social media departments don’t execute” which results in the failure of a social media department that was never meant to be. I’ll be exploring some of those reasons below.

Goal Setting

You could be the biggest and most well-paid social media consultant out there, but if you don’t know what the specific goals are for the client project, you should never sign an agreement with the prospective company. A recent statement of work I encountered read just like this:

  • Manage and grow the our following on Twitter
  • Manage and grow our fan base on Facebook
  • Manage and grow our fan base on LinkedIn
  • Possibly manage the presence on other platforms
This is a preview of Why Most Social Media Departments Fail. Read the full post (1535 words, 1 image, estimated 6:08 mins reading time)
Continue Reading84 comments
Read the full article →

The Success of Customer Service is Dependent Upon True Social Engagement

May 19, 2011

With social media now a mainstream activity — after all, nearly 700 million users are on Facebook, 300 million users are on Twitter, 61.4% of global internet users are managing online profiles, and millions of other users are engaging online across thousands of social platforms — it’s imperative that a business have a functional social media plan. Indeed, social media is useful in at least six parts of your company’s functions: sales, marketing & public relations, customer service, research & development, human resources, and executives & management. All in all, it sounds really lovely. Businesses pounce on the opportunity to integrate social media plans in their regular activities, but in many cases, they fall short.

If You Don’t Execute, You’re a Failure

As of late, I realize that social media interaction is merely a false front for a lot of companies to show that they care. Consumerist recently highlighted findings that showed that companies are hiring social media folks (both internally and externally) to listen in social channels for complaints, reply to the consumer feigning concern, and drop the matter entirely. The idea is that if you can get unhappy customers to STFU (at least in the public realm), you’ve done your job because the customer likely is now going to stop campaigning for attention publicly and your company looks like they’ve been proactive.

This is a preview of The Success of Customer Service is Dependent Upon True Social Engagement. Read the full post (1660 words, 2 images, estimated 6:38 mins reading time)
Continue Reading35 comments
Read the full article →

Connection: Social Media’s Special Gift

January 26, 2011

When the Cluetrain Manifesto was published in 1999, it signaled a paradigm shift: markets are conversations. Today, the online space and affordability of web hosting and domain names has helped create billions of conversations about your brand, your industry, and critical key players in your space.

It’s up to you to capitalize this and leverage it effectively.

I asked a big brand on Twitter for help and they gave me a canned response. I miss the days when social media was more personalized.

A big US brand with over 100,000 Twitter followers has run into the problem that I tweeted about above. To this well-known retailer, social media has become just one channel of many where they need to offer customer service without any care in the world for the people they’re engaging with. This thinking unfortunately minimizes the potential of true and far reaching social media strategy, creating the ability to truly connect with people and build bonds with constituents that can help them evangelize your brand and create passionate advocates.

This is a preview of Connection: Social Media’s Special Gift. Read the full post (1148 words, 1 image, estimated 4:36 mins reading time)
Continue Reading44 comments
Read the full article →

Invasive or Indispensable: The Case of Permanent GPS

October 20, 2010

This isn’t a real post about social media strategy, but it’s an important issue that follows from our social media behavior online. I’m sharing this because I think that despite the controversial nature, it is a significant discussion, especially since I suspect that many of you might have thought differently about this topic 5 years ago.

A friend of mine from high school disappeared two months ago. He left behind a wife and two young children. He eventually resurfaced and was said to be in good physical health. I personally do not know the details, but those periods in the interim were really stressful for all parties involved.

A member of my religious community disappeared. He was an older man, a father and grandfather, perhaps a brother too. He had a large family who cared deeply about him. I started writing this shortly after he was reported missing but before his whereabouts were discovered. Eleven days later, he was found dead in his car.

Over 700,000 individuals in the United States alone are reported missing each year. More than 2,300 people a reported missing each day.

This is a preview of Invasive or Indispensable: The Case of Permanent GPS. Read the full post (1550 words, 2 images, estimated 6:12 mins reading time)
Continue Reading53 comments
Read the full article →

What You Can Learn About Social Media Marketing from TLC

September 15, 2010

Because a Flickr photo and tweet I posted eventually was responded to, I debated posting this altogether. However, the lack of follow-through was unsettling enough that I am publishing this post.

The first week of September was difficult for American cable network TLC. There was a hostage situation at the parent company, Discovery Communications, on the first of the month. The three hostages are fortunately safe, and business resumed as usual for Discovery Communications staffers.

Around that time, though, I noticed that TLC was promoting Foursquare as Facebook within their TV programs. On multiple occasions, I noticed an overlay during their episodes that encouraged users to follow them on Foursquare with a link to a Facebook.com address.

I posted to Flickr and tried my best to bring it to their attention. And I waited.

Five days later, their Twitter account remained silent. I elected instead to go to their Facebook account with the hopes that perhaps my luck would be better there. I was wrong.

First, their default landing tab featured an inactive promotion (which has since been pulled after I wrote yet another tweet that pointed to a Flickr screenshot of the ended promotion). I would not have been surprised if it had been inactive for quite some time.

This is a preview of What You Can Learn About Social Media Marketing from TLC. Read the full post (2158 words, 3 images, estimated 8:38 mins reading time)
Continue Reading42 comments
Read the full article →

← Previous Entries