Social mania

I saw the first of these videos a few years ago. It was shown to me (and the rest of the department), by an excited Marketing Director who felt it was powerful enough to justify running headlong into social media. It was then shared again with me by an excited IT Director who finally felt he (and his industry) had been given the green light to leave the server cupboard and get stuck into this marketing malarkey we’d been fiddling with.

Their collective response to the video was, “We must do this now.”

I feel the correct response to the video should have been, “So what?”

These videos have surely been responsible for more empty Facebook walls, barren Twitter feeds and disappointed customers than anything else in the history of online marketing.

I have no problem with the statistics, they’re very interesting. Some are truly remarkable. But they don’t contain even the smallest justification for social media in your marketing mix. Before bringing anything new in, the two burning questions are;

“How will it benefit my business?” and “How will it benefit my customers?”

You’ll understand your audience’s use of social media and what their expectations might be. You’ll have formatted a publishing schedule to outline how you’ll be feeding this hungry social beast. You’ll have a list of clear measurable outcomes targeted and understood. You’ll be doing this because you know what you want.

You won’t be doing this because Ashton Kutcher has 6,693,643 followers.