There Are No Rules for Social Media

(Photo credit: kalhusoru)

It's at least a few times a week I see another "10 Social Media Rules" article on LinkedIn, collecting comments and thumbs up from the marketing industry professionals who act like Moses just handed out another batch of the Ten Commandments. I'm not a self proclaimed marketing guru ninja rock star expert, but I'm pretty certain that giving such gravitas to guidelines for successful social media campaigns is just silly.

It is also giving people a false sense of control. Look, here's the reality of the matter: Different companies are going to do well with different types of social media outreach. A company like Moosejaw can get away with being goofy and weird and it works very well for them. But they're an outdoor gear company whose tagline is "Love the Madness" and whose customer demographic is a little bit different from the average person. But if IBM started making posts like "First person to correctly guess what color socks I am wearing for 532 reward points" on Facebook, the reaction from their user base would be mostly confusion. So, the idea that there are hard and fast rules rules for what exactly companies should be doing to develop and cultivate customer relationships is just plain wrong.

It goes without saying, I hope, that your marketing person shouldn't be tweeting out negative content or that attention to grammar and spelling is important. But you don't need rules. The great part about this wide open world of new marketing is that you're free to make up the rules for your own company and your own brand! No one else operates just like you do. No one owns your brand like you do.

But here are three suggestions:

1. Don't be boring.
If your Twitter feed is a never-ending stream of blather about this new product and that new product and the white paper your company just published, it will have about as much appeal as watching C-SPAN. Give your followers something to get excited about. Ask yourself: If this was the media content of another business, would I be excited to pay attention?

2. Have a human voice.
As humans, we respond to humans much more personally than we do to corporations. So many small businesses try to present themselves online as big, impersonal companies, presumably because think that potential customers will be attracted to their impressiveness. But, customers want real people, not generic contact forms and automated phone trees. Likewise, they want to hear from real people, not faceless social media voices.

3. Don't just shout. Listen.
As I've looked at the Twitter feeds of companies I'm considering applying to, I'm constantly shaking my head at the number of businesses that just talk, talk, talk and never engage with anyone else on Twitter. Contribute to a conversation. Make it relevant. Make it helpful. If you don't interact with your customers via social media, then why are you even on there?

There are just some suggestions. Not rules. Merely suggestions! Just like your mom suggesting that you bring a jacket when going out as a teenager in case the weather got chilly. Sure, you're going to be just fine if you go without one and get a little chilled. But think of these three tips as ideas for making your marketing efforts a tad be more comfortable.

5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail at Social Media

Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Vayner Media, posted recently on LinkedIn with his ideas on why small businesses aren't winning with their social media endeavors. He has some good thoughts on the subject, and he should -- after all, he is in the business of social media and has used it to successfully promote his father's wine retail store. But, I would suggest that here are some other ways that small businesses are truly missing the mark in their social media attempts. 

1. Scattershot methodology that wastes time and is inefficient in attracting target audience

If your company is jumping on every social outlet there is, blasting away your latest promotion or product, you're wasting precious time. Sure, the idea of throwing everything at the social wall and seeing what sticks may work for some situations, but if you're just blindly posting to every site without considering your audience, you're wasting your efforts. 

Plugging your men's grooming products on Pinterest won't exactly garner the admiration of its heavily female audience. Nor will constantly trumpeting your automotive repair shop services on Facebook win you likes or followers. By all means, experiment, of course. But analyze a social media outlet for how it functions and develop a strategy for using it.

2. Obliviousness to what consumers want to learn about and how they want to interact with brands

So many companies on Facebook are flailing wildly, unsure of what to post or how often to post or how to get users to interact with their posts. The Clymb is an example of a business that really nails Facebook advertising. Instead of blasting fans with product data on its outdoor living items, it shares stories, photos, and videos of outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers. It holds photo contests and provides equipment and training advice guides. The Clymb genuinely gives their fans and followers a reason to pay attention. The company that is simply announces its latest products is merely shouting "Look at me!" without giving their customers a reason to care.

3. Equating increase in Twitter follows with increase in brand popularity and marketing efforts success

I spoke with an inbound marketing specialist recently who was elated at the outstanding success of the company's Twitter presence but was baffled as to why the company's Facebook profile remained woefully ignored. A cursory glance at Twitter account revealed that the company actually had very little reach on Twitter and that it was mostly followed by spam accounts. Unless you are actually seeing an influx of business from Twitter, your social media presence on there is probably pretty much your company shouting into the ocean. The reason their Facebook was lagging behind was simply because it is much harder to create a fake Facebook account to follow a company and following a company on Twitter is just another drop in the sea of content. Use analytics tools to see what results your social media efforts are actually causing.

4. Assuming your clients care about your brand in any other facet of their lives

Your company is a big deal to you. And in many ways, a big deal to your employees. And to some extent, depending on what you do, you can matter quite a bit to your customers. But, honestly, customers feel about your company news announcements mostly the same way they feel about hearing latest accomplishment updates from the friends who have have young children. People only care about how their business relates to you. That is it. So, announcing every little business news tidbit is just going to annoy your customers. And they will un-follow you.

5. Attempting to use social media as a substitute for good customer service

The best social media campaign you can run is to blow the minds of your customers with intensely good customer service. If you can take an issue and solve it for your customer in a way that is considerate, helpful, and goes above expectation, then the client becomes the most powerful social media campaign because nothing holds greater weight than a personal recommendation. And if your customer service experience is tweet-worthy or compels that customer to announce it on Facebook, you're going to have exposure to that client's entire social media audience in a positive light. Fail miserably with your customer service and no amount of social media promotion is going to compensate for making a customer angry or disappointed.

Bonus: Listening to "social media experts" and taking their word as gospel

Declaring yourself a social media guru, ninja, rock star, and "expert" means nothing. As Ad Age reported in January, there are 181,000 Social Media "Gurus," "Ninjas," "Masters," and "Mavens" on Twitter. So, take everything you read with a grain of salt, even this post.