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Almost a year ago, I wrote about the cats in our neighborhood and how they chase squirrels with no thought as to what they’re going to do once they catch it. I had a similar thought this morning as I got yet another company-centric plea to “like us” or “follow us.” Since part of what I do is to help companies understand, manage, and use social media to further their goals, I’m all for building up the engaged consumer base. However, that leads to the inevitable question about what happens when the dog catches the mail truck: once you’ve attracted fans and followers, what happens?
First, I think it’s important for companies to distinguish between the various forms of social customer interaction. How consumers use each one should be a factor – you wouldn’t think of an investment house on Facebook but you might on LinkedIn. Next, whatever platform you choose, commit to support it properly at the same time. This is answering the question I posed earlier: what are you going to do with all those people once you’ve got them. Believe me – you can lose followers as fast as you attract them.
While I highly discourage Twitter spam and automated hourly updates (which as an aside seems to be getting much worse), it’s hard for you to get heard in the general stream unless you are a constant relevant presence. I wonder why more companies don’t encourage their followers to set up a separate list which is a customer-centric interest containing the company to stand out? If you want fans to keep you in their Facebook news stream, you need to speak to them as do their friends – be newsworthy, be interesting, be fun, be real. Recognize that it’s not just a handful of tech companies using this medium any more and many of the newcomers are way more sophisticated about marketing than the pioneers.
Finally, recognize that “social media” is interdisciplinary when done properly. In many companies there is a tendency to want to own and silo something – marketing doesn’t put out press releases on its own, customer service doesn’t create ads. Who owns social? Marketing? PR? Customer service? The reality is that it touches each of those areas and while each should use it, someone (me?) needs to make sure that anyone and everyone who is touching social knows and follows best practices.
I encourage you to chase mail trucks engage consumers via social. Just be ready for when you catch them.
Consult Keith 