Social Media – it’s not about you – the #1 mistake many corporates make

This past week has been an interesting one for me on twitter, and it has led me to a realisation of where many in social media go wrong.

The week started for me last week (I know it sounds mad) – in that I had a major series of problem from a supplier. I had already been in discussions with their social media team about the appalling levels of customer service their call centres made, along with multiple “school boy” errors from their tech support – 1st, 2nd and behind the scenes bods. The details of which are not relevant here.

I had trouble contacting my “named person”, so tried to find them on social media – I did, both their personal twitter and linkedin profile. What amaized me was that the person i was chasing had themselves been chasing the social media representatives of a supplier to their personal household. They wondered why a reply & solution was taking more than a week, and demanded a response that day. I have been patient for 6 weeks! Oh the irony!

Social Media Lesson #1

so a sub lesson here – deliver the service to your customers you expect from your suppliers!

But the real learning came when I was looking at having to change a piece of software I use to help me manage twitter – they are ceasing the service in 2 months time. As I looked at alternatives I was also looking at the reports available. One of the tools had a suggested unfollow tool-set. Some of the reasons to unfollow include:

• too many links
• RTs only
• me me me posts
• little of no @ or RT activity
• no support of multiple sites (i.e. links only to one site/ domain)

Then I looked at a number of corporate twitter accounts. Most fail many of these “tests”, sure they @ message people – but often the tone of the messages is negative (i.e. they are managing complaints)
The only RTs are often when other people Rt their brand or site
no rts or tweets of third party sites

…and this last one to me is the biggie – “me me me” its all about their site. Its not about “social media” at all. Its just another communication or brand broadcast channel.

It’s social media stupid

Its supposed to be “social” this means adding value to the community as a whole – be social. Social is not about talking about YOUR products or services. its about educating, informing and building the global village.

So the key lesson and challenge for these social media channels – how can you tweet about others domains (blogs like this maybe?) without it being seen as an endorsement, but just about sharing.
I think this is a mindset rather then a policy issue.

The Social Media Challenge

The challenge is over to you

if you want any help or ideas – you know where to find me

Mike Morrison
RapidBI.com
+44 0208 2300980
RapidBI Blog

400+ Management & Leadership models in PowerPoint Format Download NOW
SWOT Analysis Slides
Ready to use training course materials
Google