Have you ever done a social media campaign autopsy? It can be ugly.
Analyzing what doesn’t work in social media is as informative as looking at the successful campaigns. After all, we must learn from our mistakes in order to move forward and be successful.
Often, I think we make Social Media more difficult than it needs to be. It is nothing more than communicating with customers, prospects, partners, colleagues, friends and family through a growing number of new tools.
Some of the tools available to us that were not a decade or so ago are:
- Social Networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc)
- Blogs (absolutely, blogs are part of social media)
- Bookmarking Sites (Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc)
- Video Sharing sites (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
We are communicating with each other through all of these mediums and more. But communication has not changed, and business communication has certainly not changed.
We still do business with people that we KNOW, LIKE and TRUST.
So, when you perform an autopsy on a failed social media campaign here is what you will usually find:
Too Much Talking, Not Enough Listening
If you are talking with friends and family, it is perfectly acceptable to be doing a lot of the talking. However, when conducting a social media campaign for business purposes, you should remember that the best way to sell is to listen and then respond.
Business has not changed. Remember the “Six Ways To Make People Like You” from Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People:
Six Ways to Make People Like You
- Become genuinely interested in other people.
- Smile.
- Remember that a man’s Name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
- Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
- Talk in the terms of the other man’s interest.
- Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.
All but #2 is in play in Social Media channels today. So, I guess what I am saying is “Shut Up!” 
Going Six Different Directions At Once
There are about 9 zillion different ways to market your business on the Internet. When you start looking around you will find one opportunity after another.
Often, in a social media autopsy, we find attempts were made to build accounts on dozens of different social networks, a blog was built a viral video strategy was haphazardly launched — none of them were every done well. Most were left neglected.
Stop.
Pick two (or three at most) fundamentals and master them. Learn the protocols of these methods and learn to measure your progress, or lack thereof.
Promoting Instead of Publishing
I mentioned that you should be doing more listening than talking.
When you do finally open your mouth it should not be about THE BIG SALE you are having on your products or services.
Picture yourself walking into a cocktail party and trying to sell watches from inside your coat. Yeah, it’s like that.
Social media channels are a place to have conversations with customers, prospects, colleagues and possible partners. Don’t do the hard sell thing.
Instead, create and share valuable content with your network via a larger Content Marketing strategy — one that distributes valuable content to your target market on a regular basis. You will find that the sales will come.
Your turn. What are your thoughts? What do you find that works or doesn’t work in a social media campaign?
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