While social media experts like to tell their clients that the thing that visitors to their social media business properties hate the most is when they visit your company’s Facebook Page, YouTube, Twitter profile, LinkedIn Company Page, and Instragram, blog, Pinterest, Google+, tumblr, and all they see is the automated, cross-posted, aimless rambling groans of a social media zombie horde: aimless, pointless, and only a shadow of your former self (and the brand you’re bent on promoting).
No, that’s only the second most-hated thing in corporate social media branding.
The number-one thing visitors to your online properties, including your website, hate the most is a ghost town. I can’t tell you how many brands have not only over-committed to too many social media profiles but then have all but abandoned them all, most of which without even completely moving in to each platform. This sort of abandonment goes on for a while, over time, and the social media platform evolves, adds new features, and your profiles stays the same. (Yes, yes, there is something to be said about securing your brand on as many social media platforms as possible in order to make sure nobody else squats there, it is true)
The biggest reason why this happens is never because anyone’s too busy.
Know why I know this? Because stupid things like birthday parties, office cakes, meetings, internal newsletters, business meetings, motivational outings and happy hours do happen on a daily basis, and all of those things are less important to your brand than social media marketing. So, the three reasons why social media business and brand ghost towns are an epidemic are because people think 1) social media is beneath them (“I’m refuse to do intern-level work”), 2) haven’t integrated social into their daily business operations (their standard operations procedure) so social hasn’t moved from being a bolted-on special project to being a line item of the company’s sales and marketing budget, or 3) they really hate — or just don’t know how — to do it (see number 1).
In all three cases, it comes down to a lack of passion, a lack of vision, or a lack of a win.
Passion can’t be trained, though it can be fostered. It’s amazing how much passion and commitment even a naysayer can muster when she starts making sales and driving revenue — and even retaining and upselling clients and customers — as a result of social media engagement. Lacking that, it’s on you to either search for someone who is already deeply marinated in company culture who not only gets social media but also is so completely totally psyched about getting to do your social media, including blogging, that they’ll keep on keeping on through the weeks, months, and even half-year it might take for real growth to occur.
It’s like building a new reef: sinking an old fishing trawler is only step one. From there on, you’ll have to make sure you create conditions that will ultimately not only attract coral larvae to settle and develops into polyps but also attract all the other denizens of reef life. First you get the trawler, then you get the larvae, then you get the sponges, then you get the mollusks, then you get the crustaceans, then you get the fish, sharks, turtles, and then — if you play your cards right — marine mammals!
And, if you can’t find someone — or someones — already on your team (or team-adjacent) then you’ll either need to hire in or hire out. Either way, to quote my favorite fictional character Chauncey Gardner, “In the (social media) garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again. As long as the (social media) roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the (social media) garden. There will be growth in the spring!” Alternately, to quote The S.O.S. Band, “now, baby we can do it Take the time, do it right We can do it, baby Do it tonight.”
I was reminded of this all last week when I had the honor of being the moderator for a workshop panel on October first entitled Social Media Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Small Business. I had a chance to meet and work with Marc Hausman, Daniel Russell, and Christian Karasiewicz as we walked members and guests of the Mid-Atlantic Federation of Turkic American Associations event through the essentials of social media marketing for small businesses. My three speakers did an amazing job. Marc provided the strategy, Christian provided the tactics, and Daniel provided the most compelling case study on intentionally going viral I have ever seen and, including getting onto the first page of reddit, a holy grail we in the industry have all but given up on.
Now that you know that there’s nothing worse than a social media ghost town, it’s time to start posting, even if posting means doing a lot of cross posting, auto posting, and dropping a bunch of content links moderately salient to your business and brand as you work towards creating the sort of high quality bespoke content that Marc Hausman, Daniel Russell, and Christian Karasiewicz expect from you, your best self, and your best brand.
And now, go git ’em, tiger!
