After a long break from blogging – and writing in general – I’m back with a post on social media.
The reason for me writing this is because I’ve been following social media “experts” for a few months now, and at the same time I’ve been following companies and their strategies.
My nationality is Sweden hence I’ve focused on mainly swedish companies but also American startups and such. Let me tell you, the difference is noticeable.
This post serves the purpose of inspiring people to communicate and be transparent and could even be an alarm clock for some companies who clearly doesn’t see the seriousness in the way the web (and our lives) are changing.
Today’s situation (the bad parts)
Here’s a few common patterns I’ve come to notice when looking at companies who don’t really understand social media and its purpose.
- One way communication
This is a common one and what I think a misinterpretation of the platform. Daily I see companies who are using twitter to send out shameless offers on the newest cellphones or whatever they are selling. There’s nothing wrong with this BUT the road (the twitter stream) isn’t a one way street. Most of these companies errors when they think that they can advertise in the same way as on tv; Interupt in the middle of something fun with a commercial break and then not having to listen to whether people think the stuff they are selling is good or not.
- Speed misjudgment/Underestimating the internet
This is almost as common, the difference being that the companies often – but not always – have understood what needs to be done. The problem is they don’t pull the trigger fast enough. Instead they lay out a 3 year plan on implementing twitter because “everyone’s telling us that we should use it” or “we know we have to use it, but it just isn’t one of our priorities right now”. Before they’ve even gotten to implement one platform into their communication streams it’s gone.
A few days ago I was talking to an employee at Telenor, the 7th biggest telecom company in Sweden. The reaction I got when asking about their “social media strategy” was quite interesting and not too far from the examples I gave above.Being a company who delivers a way for people to communicate it is for me totally unimaginable that they choose to ignore an alternative stream to connect to their customer base when this stream (the internet in general) is taking over.
Bottom line is: Act fast, or you’ll loose.
- People are expecting greater service
I will let Gary Vaynerchuk (garyvaynerchuk.com) explain this one before I give my view, because he communicated it so well in this video.
This is actually something I’ve noticed in myself. Whenever I go to a site and need to contact someone, I’m pissed if I don’t find a twitter or facebook logo. I’ve stopped emailing companies who only provide an email address that says “info©company•com ”.
The other thing gary talks about that I can relate to is the internet part. I don’t know about you, but when I’ve payed 100-200 bucks for a hotel room I find it kind of annoying to see that I have to go through the hassle of purchasing a ticket to be able to use the internet. Or even worse, they don’t have internet so I will have to go outside point my laptop in different directions to hopefully find an unencrypted network so I can check my email.
If you haven’t started giving greater service than before in forms of better communication, transparency and just caring, it’s time to start now!
“The word media is throwing people off”
After this article I think you will have found out that I’m somewhat of a garyvee fan. So for the second time in this post, here is a video from garyvaynerchuk.com
The way I see it, fast communication is kind of an extension of the primary product. This relates to the customer expectation part in the last section.
In a few years (or even later in 2010) people will be so sick of waiting in a phone queue to ask a simple question. The expectation will be that if I purchase a product I should get good support on it too. The ideal being when you can actually create a positive relation to that company and see that they really care about their customers.
Don’t care about the words and whatever media is saying that it is or should be. Just get out there and show people that you care, that you want to provide value and that you are trustable. “Social media” is just a new way of communicating that is working to your advantage. It has never been easier to have a relation with your customer/fan base, so reach out and grab the opportunity now.
Change and adaptation
So you feel like changing, or perhaps just improve the way you’re utilizing the new communication streams available on the internet?
Here are a few things that I think you should keep in mind when developing a “social media” strategy:
- Realize the shift:
Realize fully that the internet landscape is shifting and that you can either adapt to these changes or fall behind.
- Care
People are expecting you to care, so do it. Whether you are building a personal brand or are representing a big Fortune 500 company doesn’t matter. You should want to care, because caring is value. And that’s the whole point with your business, right? To provide value that is.
- Keep up.
This goes for both short-term and long-term matters.
If someone isn’t happy with your product or brand they will speak about it. The beauty of today’s communication channels is that you can then go into the stream and try to fix it (and thus bring value).There’s nothing better than a happy customer who is willing to share his or her joy.
search.twitter.com is a wonderful tool to see what people are saying about your brand. - Feel the changes:
Quite similar to the last point but in a more long-term sense.
I talked before about how the internet landscape was changing. In short: Go where the people are.Before people were reading the paper, so you put an ad there. Now people go on the internet and read news papers, blogs, follow people on facebook/twitter, diggs articles. People, society and internet changes.
Feel the changes and adapt.
- Identify common patterns
This is actually a little bit down the road for people/brands who haven’t started to change, but I’ll include it anyway. When you’re in the social stream of the internet it is now time to stay alert.
So you’re responding and helping people that are talking negatively about your brand? Good! But the rivers runs deeper.
The next tip I would give is to identify the common patterns of the reactions your brand get. I’m a really big fan of the 80/20 rule and I think there’s a lot to it in this case. The 80/20 rule in this case statest that 80% of the negative comments of your brand comes from 20% of the actual problems.
My bet is, that in most cases there will be a few things that are causing most of the problems. Try to identify this and fix the original problem. This will save you a lot of time in the future.
I have for example seen a lot of negative comments on a certain brands slow shipping of SIM cards. Instead of trying to patch up every case, why not fix the slow shipping problem instead?
I realize that in some cases this just isn’t problem, but you could then utilize another medium (a blog) to explain the situation. I think being transparent about these things is more useful than trying to hide the fact that the brand isn’t perfect.
Nothing is perfect, and people will accept it if you’re transparent about it.
- Staying ahead of the competition (as of now January 2010)
“But I want to take this even further!” you say. Okay then!
When you’ve established an identity on the platforms that you feel matters most to your brand and people have started communicating with you, you’ve come a long way.
People that connect will get value and be more happy, but what about those who aren’t connecting to you in the first place?What I’m saying is this: Just because you’ve created a twitter profile doesn’t mean you automatically get swarmed with followers who wants to connect. I will not go into the job of getting your customer base to connect, but you shouldn’t forget that there is still ways to help.
search.twitter.com and facebook.com/search are (once again) wonderful tools for finding out what people think. Use it as a way of connecting with people who aren’t following you yet and work from there.
Last words
Just remember: If you don’t care because you genuinely want to, you will most likely not receive a positive response.
Before I head out to the Social Media Club meeting I’d like to ask you a question:
In what ways do you think the new ways of communicating is influencing you in your daily life?
Please write your answer in the comments below!
If you liked this article I’d appreciate a tweet or a stumble too.
All the best,
Jonas
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
Thanks for the comment Dan!
I’ll do my best to keep the articles coming
Have a great day!
/Jonas
Hi Jonas, I work with, among other things, social media for the TeliaSonera Group (present in 20 countries with 144 million customers). I got info from Halebop that you had sent them this information.
I took the opportunity to spread the link to my social media network within the TeliaSonera Group, and I just wanted to tell you that e.g. my colleague in Spain responded quickly and found your insights “brilliant”. Just thought you´d like to know
Best regards,
LG Wallmark
TeliaSonera
Group Communications
Hi LG!
Thank you so much for the kind response. It totally made my day
“Social media” is a really interesting field and something I’d love to study/experiment with further. I will definitely write more on this topic later
) which will be just as much fun!
In the meanwhile I will also be keeping an eye on other companies (yes, I’ve noticed your work the latest months
Have a great evening!
/Jonas
Hey Jonas
AWESOME post with some great insights you’re providing! I totally agree with the one way communication which is very noticeable especially on Twitter. I did the same mistake once…I was building a list of followers without thinking…hundreds and hundreds of new people every week and I was just tweeting out my “genius” tweets
) It doesn’t work…it’s much more effective to focus on building relationships rather than building lists of followers.
I really find it funny how people’s habits are changing with the growth of social media. As you, I usually don’t contact companies who are not on FB, Twitter, etc…if there are other options, lol. And everytime I’m doing a due dilligence of a company…I review what they have online in regards to social media
)
Keep up the great work with your posts!!!
Cheers
Ronny
PS: There is a pretty good special report on social networking in last week’s issue of The Economist
Thanks Ronny!
Yeah, I’ve been there too. I used this twitter auto follower tool once. Sure it worked, but it never worked out :p
As a hobby I sometimes like to contact various companies just to give them some of my thoughts (hence the comment from LG Wallmark above) just because I find it very interesting.
Right now I’ve been focusing on telecom companies in Sweden because it still baffles me that some companies has only “thought about pushing the start button for a social media project” but in fact barely know what it means.
One of the most crucial things in my opinion is to create an initial goal with the usage of social medias. What do you, as a company, want to achieve by existing on Twitter,Facebook,Ning,Sphinn,StumbleUpon or anywhere else?
For some it might be to increase sales, for some it’s just to facilitate customer support, and for some people it’s to bring additional value to an already established customer base.
Many Swedish companies are still in the “Hype” phase; Let’s use twitter because people say we should.
I’m so excited for a local project coming up where we will be utilizing facebook as a base to spread the word of our brand. Will be a lot of fun!
Have a great evening,
Jonas
[...] out of trouble no matter how wrong they’ve acted, but as transparency is becoming a customer expectation these will probably get [...]