10 ways to suck at social media

#SMW #10Suck @Adcentered

Agenda10 Ways to suck5 ways to not suck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln_omwmIEu4

All the FAIL moments in this video started as off ideas.

Good ideas at the time…

It’s important look at these examples in context and know that nobody intends to suck when they start. It just happens sometimes.

1MirroringThis is when you reflect a perceived image of your audience back at them. It rarely works and people get turned off by a brands trying hard to be too cool.

2Eager BeaverThis is when you try to be in too many networks at one time. Pick the ones that you can manage and don’t go crazy trying to build a following for no reason. Decide what your objectives are before you get to eager.

There are way too many networks to be good at all of them.

You don’t have the resources to maintain them all.

3Deaf EarMost companies don’t have a proper listening and reporting plan. This is one of the easiest things you can do and one of the biggest areas of improvement for brands.

Alterian 2010

4Asking Too Much90%of people won’t do much, 9% might do a little something and 1% will actually contribute. The more you ask of people, the more reward you need to provide. A big ask = low participation. If you want lots of people to take part, ask for things that loads of people can take part in.

Plan VideoMake VideoEdit VideoUpload VideoPromote Video

52 ENTRIEShttp://www.youtube.com/user/Dolmio2010?feature=mhum

5 InternalBuy-in &Support

It is difficult to make the transition into social media if your company has no history of doing it. Internal buy-in and support is crucial, especially during the transition process.

81% of companies don’t have a clear social media strategy

73% say legal departments hinder social media

87% had to correct their social media expectations

68% never heard of the 90-9-1% rule

7% understand the CRM value of social

11% have social guidelines Brand Science Institute 2010http://www.slideshare.net/Insidebsi/why-social-media-projects-fail-a-european-perspective

6Lose ItThis is when you lose control of your brand

through one form or another. A community manager may write a damaging post or your brand could get hijacked by activists. Having a crisis plan in place is essential.

Nestle vs. Greenpeace

http://www.bnet.com/blog/businesstips/nestles-facebook-page-how-a-company-can-really-screw-up-social-media/6786

http://www.nma.co.uk/news/vodafone-uk-twitter-feed-abused/3009680.article

Vodafone vs. Employee

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/12/vodafone-smile-tax-protest-twitter

Vodafone vs. Tax Protestors

7Ugly Stepchild(orphaned media)

This is when social media is seen as an afterthought. Or when it’s done in isolation of channels. Orphaned media is when you abandon a campaign or project online to fend for itself.

Apple doesn't have any social sharing buttons built into their site. Some companies add them at the very bottom. Apple could have learned a lot from being more social. It’s no surprise that their iTunes social network PING is taking off slower than expected even though they have 160M users.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lego/6665038402?v=wall

Lego has a page with nearly 1M fans, but the last interaction from admins happened in 2008. There could be a number of different reasons for this, but there’s so much potential to make things right in this case.

8Measurement OCDSome people focus so much on measurement and use it as a

way of dismissing social media projects. If you want ROI, you need to plot numbers into a formula. If you don’t assign values, you don’t have a formula. Make an effort to assign a monetary value to engagement and interactions.

What do you want for your spend?

Where are you now Where would you like to be

Awareness Sales Value Add Other

Assigned Monetary Value?

You’ll have to guess some of the numbers if you don’t know them, but if you want to measure you have to start with something you can test. Don’t dismiss unless you give ROI a fair try.

9Cheap ReplacementSocial is not a cheap replacement for other media. It

will cost you time or money and as we all know, time is money. So which one do you want to spend?

Time

Cos

t Quality

10Underestimate

A lot can happen when people unite for or against something. There’s no guarantees either way, so don’t underestimate the power of people talking to each other. Have plans in place to ride the wave (good or bad) if you happen to get one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

180 Million Dollar Guitar

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/chris_ayres/article6722407.ece

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ravi-sawhney/design-reach/youtube-serves-180-million-heartbreak

Bad publicity, partly as the result of the broken guitar video caused United’s stock price to drop 10%. That translated into 180M Dollars. There may have been other factors, but you can’t deny the fact that millions of people reacted to this story.

5 Ways Not to Suck

1

Social R&D

R&D drives innovation. We use it when planning new products, but it makes sense for marketing as well. If you want to drive innovation, test and learn. Start with something small that’s new to you. Google lets people play and experiment and they are better for it. Learn lessons on a small scale and apply what you learn to bigger projects.

2

Go Beyond The USP

People are not one dimensional. Look beyond traditional market segmentation and explore how people really behave.

USPUnique Selling Proposition

MBBMultiple Brand Benefits

PUSH

PULL

3

Passion Points

People gather around things that they are interested in. Sometimes your brand is the passion point. Most of the time it’s something else. Find your audience’s passion points (more than one) and figure out where you’re brand fits in. If you can be relevant through multiple passion points, people will listen.

4

Take the time

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Take the time. The only short cut to hard work is to buy someone else's hard work.

5

Dip your little toe in

Start doing little things. Search for you brand on Twitter or do something else that requires 1 minute of you time. Becoming more skilled in social media is like moving into a new town. It all starts they day you move in. In a few weeks you’ll learn the street names, in a few months you’ll know some shortcuts. In a year, you’ll be giving directions to people who just moved in. You’ll be a local in no time. But, it all starts the day you make the move.

We looked at ways to suck and a few ways to not suck. It’s OK to make mistakes. It’s a sign that you’re trying.

Have a look around and take in as much as you can. Look at the good and the bad and do something about it.

Give yourself space to learn lessons and proceed as you learn.

The one thing to remember from 10 Ways to Suck is to keep trying and…

MAKEMISTAKESBETTER

Fail Whale Image found on http://www.techi.com/2010/12/4-potential-twitter-failures/

Luis CarranzaHead of Social MediaChemistry Communications Group Plc

luis.carranza@chemistrygroup.co.ukDirect Line: +44 (0)20 7751 3506

@adcenteredwww.adcentered.comadcentered@yahoo.com