Today’s guest post is from Chris Lucas. Chris works for Formspring, an online forms company in Indianapolis.
Not a real original title, I know…but I have a point. First let me introduce myself. My name is Chris, I work for an online forms company in Indianapolis. I am not a social media expert. I have been experimenting in social media for the last couple of years….now, on to the good stuff.
I am tired of people looking at social media and staring at it like its last week’s leftovers, wondering just how good it really is. Social Media is not a science. It is not a complex equation that should take years to study and years to implement – some people may think I am wrong, but oh well.
Companies and people need to stop staring and start participating. It isn’t scary, you learn by doing. You learn by listening. That is where many companies get it wrong…your first action is not to talk. Your first action should be to listen. Listen to what the people are saying. What they accept, what they don’t. What they need and what they want to see. I know, you’ve heard it all before. But seriously. Do IT – see what the fuss is all about.
If you need to “sell” it to your organization, don’t sell it as marketing or sales. Sell it as online PR. Sell it as brand management, sell it as protecting your name in one of the biggest unknowns out there – the internet.
You don’t need to be an expert, you just need to get involved.
Ah, the experts…don’t get me started. One of the reasons why companies are so afraid of getting involved is because they are afraid of the inevitable attack on their brand. The diatribes against ACME Co, because they are doing it wrong. Listen. This is new. People are experimenting. Social media experts need to stop lecturing. Everyone is not going to be authentic. Everyone has an agenda – even if they are authentic, everyone is trying to sell something. So we nee to let people figure it out for themselves. We need to let people find that balance. For every 30 authentic posts, comments, tweets, etc, they can sell once, mention their brand. Let them figure out what their audience will absorb and tolerate.
The beauty of social media is that people can listen to whomever they want, people will dictate who is successful and who isn’t. So when a company starts spamming or not being authentic people will stay tuned or not. They will run or they will stay. Companies will adjust or won’t. Some will get it, some won’t. The people will decide and most companies will pay attention. They will learn, but let’s not get our social media panties in a bunch, just because we were here first. Let the experiment continue and grow, that’s the beauty of this thing.
Nice post. I agree with you on jumping into Social Media and just do it. But it takes time – a lot of time to get the pulse of your target audience right. Add to that the technology challenge.
Infact “Facebook Psycology” is a subject at one University where they study the science of behaviour as part of Social Media.
Here is a Flash animation on Social Media which explains the Technology and Behaviour part.
http://vizedu.com/2008/10/social-media-explained-visually/
Great points Chris! This whole medium is definitely still new enough that organizations shouldn’t be afraid to experiment. You never know what’s going to hit home until you try.
Great post, Chris! I agree: jumping in and participating is great. I typically suggest people enter the field in 3 stages: listen, comment, initiate. I think it’s also important to make sure that a company’s involvement in social media lines up with their objectives. I agree with you that we don’t have to be experts–that means there’s a place for me!
Nice work!
Jeff Tippett
@Colin Clark – thanks! I agree.
@Jeff Tippet – the three step approach is perfect, probably could have used that instead of long-winded post
!
@Sandeep – I agree that it takes time, however I think that companies can get started with just a little sweat equity. You can do all the behaviour studies you want, but if you don’t first listen to the environment around you, you are going to set up for failure. I think once you have “mastered” listening and engaging you can start to bring in more “complex” studies and programs.
I definitely think that trial and error is all part of the process! People are afraid of making errors and that’s understandable. I think that people (businesses) fear being judged and they fear losing the trust of their client in the process of committing error.
But there are ways to minimize that error. And that’s by listening, following in the steps of others and learning by their mistakes. If you make a minor mistake here or there, it’s a smaller error than the one you commit by not having participated at all! (At least that’s my humble opinion).