Mistakes Made During the Last 1 Year of Social Media Marketing
Its been almost a year since we started undertaking social media marketing activities for clients. A lot of them have come up with positive feedback – especially the likes of Blue Bus Tees, LK Digi, Big Films, and Percept Knorigin. Without enough watertight measures they did see a return on investment from the efforts undertaken by us to scale free online mediums. This post however, is not to laud any of that – its mostly to enumerate the mistakes made in the past – mistakes that we hope not to repeat in the future (hopefully you’ll find some of them useful enough to not repeat them yourself). This is also keeping in tune with the recent ‘Sach Ka Saamna’ Trend :p
1) Large amount of strategy focussed on activating people within existing social networks. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there needs to be more meat and creativity to a strategy than just plain optimization on social networks. Social networks have an inherent flair – they are platforms for Word of Mouth marketing on steriods! The time has passed from when we needed to have brands creating just a presence on social networks. That not only lacks creativity but also makes the entire medium seem like one thats not too complicated. Agreed that conversation is a part of the social media marketing mix, and that conversations have to be sustained for long however, there have to be spurts of campaigns – campaigns that make people undertake actions. Its only when these ‘actions’ are undertaken by consumers, then will the real power of social media be outlined. The action could be something as simple as ‘unfriending’ a Facebook friend like in the case of Burger King, getting a vote from your friends as was the case with The Great Driving Challenge – and then syncing those votes as feeds into people’s social networks probably drives a lot more value than anything else. I have noticed that social media consultants have started to notice that just a presence on social networks will not work and hence they are creating websites to back the same. The emphasis however, has been on creating either static sites or sites that are not engaging enough. Few people have gone out of their way to ensure that the web properties that they create outside of social networks merge seamlessly with social networks and at the same time provide added functionality by themselves. I have made the mistake of undertaking strategy that is solely married to social networks.
2) Be genuine. Always. A lot of people have said this over and over again. At times, i have made the mistake of fake commenting/ interactions. I am a 150% sure that this does not work. The idea is for a brand to build relationships with important stakeholders. Relationships that cannot be sustained shouldn’t be started at all.
3) Use opinion leaders and use them well. At the start of the year, i was unable to use opinion leaders to further my cause. By identifying interested stakeholders and building relationships with them – getting them on your side, the process becomes a lot easier. The returns are also more valuable. With our work for Blue Bus Tees, this has shown results. The Great Driving Challenge is another perfect example. DeskAway has also done some great work by getting in touch with the correct opinion leaders and thereby getting covered on some of the top technology websites.
4) Not spending as much time ‘educating’ clients and also fudging certain statistics. I have done this once with a client. Out of desperation, sometimes you have to – its a horrible practise though! Be as true as possible. I have seen social media reports from companies glorifying applications they created when in fact the application may not have an uptake/ be engaging enough. I have seen social media companies over value the ‘conversations’ they create. I have seen companies build crap properties and charge an arm and a leg for it. All of us will have to be more faithful to our clients. That obviously requires an objective mechanism for measurement – which we still haven’t created – there are no industry standards rather.
5) Using the ’social media is not about numbers’ argument. Trust me, it is about numbers. We need to find relative audiences, no doubt. But if you can find only 1000 fans/ group members/ unique visitors for a national or international brand then you have to be kidding when you say the same. If your numbers aren’t good enough, it only means that your property is crap, your idea stinks, and you haven’t worked hard enough. Brand managers have choice – they have money to spend on SEO, PPC, Social Media, Banner Advertising. If you want social media to be the center of your brand’s online strategy – make sure it can deliver the numbers. The brand manager will then divert all his online resources to your campaign!
6) Not understanding the metrics by which your client measures success. We have to, have to do this! Atleast till standard metrics are a given at the marketplace.
7) Putting 1 brand manager/ social media evangelist on more than 1 brand. I would never ever do this again. 1 brand manager/ brand team per brand ensures deeper involvement, a stronger marriage, and greater results. Social media at the end of the day is about breathing life into a brand in the online space – if the person managing the brand, cannot be on the brand 24 x 7 – the spillover effects of word of mouth will not be achieved.
These are mistakes that we will definitely not repeat again. To work with us, call FoxyMoron.
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