Social Media FAQs…NO!
A quick list of the 25 most frequently asked questions with respect to social media, to which (all) the answer is a resounding NO:
1 – Will this increase my sales, directly?
2 – Can you (my agency) do this all for me?
3 – Will I see results in 30 days?
4 – Isn’t it all about selling and marketing?
5 – Should I just talk about how great my company and/or new product or service is?
6 – So, what I’m doing is sending out “status updates”?
7 – Can I expect to have thousands of fans for my B2B professional services firm on Facebook?
8 – Should I blindly contact everyone I know (and even those I don’t) and ask them to follow or fan me?
9 – Our website isn’t that great. Can we get started anyway?
10 – Should I ignore negative interaction and delete negative comments on my blog?
11 – Can’t this just replace traditional marketing, advertising and PR? OR: Can this be separate from our public relations efforts and strategy?
12 – Should our CEO be the face of the company and do all the tweeting, blogging, etc.?
13 – Is this easy?
14 – Isn’t it free?
15 – I don’t have time. Is 15 minutes a week enough time to devote to this?
16 – I don’t want to jump bandwagons…isn’t this just a fad?
17 – Aren’t we running a huge risk, putting ourselves out there to the public?
18 – Isn’t it dangerous to let our employees talk about our company online?
19 – Won’t people just say negative things about me in social media?
20 – Can’t I just stay controlled and guarded of my brand by not participating in online conversations?
21 – When you say “social media,” you’re talking about Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, right?
22 – Can’t I just tell my employees there is a strict no-social-media policy?
23 – Is blogging once a month or so enough?
24 – Do people really care about what my company or I is doing every few minutes?
25 – Is social media a marketing panacea?
This post has 17 comments
November 17th, 2009
Great. Absolutely great.
Sadly, though, 25 may not be enough…am sure that there are quite a few other instances where NO should be the answer.
But you point out the need for a strategy — a sales strategy, a marketing strategy, a PR strategy, heck, a BUSINESS strategy — to drive a company or individual’s use of Social Media Marketing.
Cheers,
Dave
November 17th, 2009
Thanks, Dave. I could’ve gone on forever. There are a lot of NOs going on out there. At least people are asking the questions, I suppose. Maybe I’ll do a follow-up, or people can add some in the comments section…
November 17th, 2009
thanks for posting. It’s hard to explain to the owner of my company how important it is to be using social media even if there isn’t necessarily a direct increase in sales.
November 17th, 2009
I think this is a great list. It’s a must-read for any company looking to get started in social media. My only question is about #21, “When you say “social media,” you’re talking about Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, right?”
Of course these aren’t the only social media platforms, but they most definitely are social media. When a company is just starting out in the digital space, Twitter, Facebook and blogging are some of the first places they start.
Maybe you’re just trying to point out that these aren’t the only types of social media, despite being the most buzzed about.
Again, great list!
@abschoff
November 17th, 2009
Now to get the right people to read this….
November 17th, 2009
Great post! I really like seeing a full list of these questions because they are constantly being asked.
I think, it will be valuable to get a couple of sentences explaining why the answer is no for each question!
Thanks for the great resource!
@SonyaRuzheva
November 17th, 2009
Abby, #21 is a reference to the mistake most make assuming that social media is ONLY Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You are certainly right that, for some, those three (and blogs) are the best place to start…but for many others, it isn’t. Slideshare or DocStoc might make more sense. YouTube might make more sense. Heck, if you’re a musician, MySpace might still be the best place to start. It all depends on your goals, your mission, your audience and your metrics.
Put another way: Social media is a big place. For example, see here: http://www.briansolis.com/2009/03/conversation-prism-v20/
Thanks for reading, and MANY thanks for commenting.
November 17th, 2009
Great list!
I do have a question on number 8, “Should I blindly contact everyone I know (and even those I don’t) and ask them to follow or fan me?”
In my case, starting a brand new PC repair business, getting the word out I gave an invite to all the people on my Facebook page (my partner and his gf did the same). The fan page isn’t just listing what we’re doing every minute but providing interesting links to the tech world. Out of ~300 invites ~30 accepted.
My question is, since Facebook invites are easy to ignore, what’s wrong with starting a business with blind invites to your friends on Facebook?
November 17th, 2009
Great! I get calls from clients every month asking if they should be using twitter to
sell more. NO!
Social media is about building relationships, and getting really good information. All of that can turn into revenue, but it’s first place is relationship building.
Thanks for this, I will be referring clients to the blog in the future.
November 17th, 2009
I love this list and feel like I should print it out and hand it to prospects/clients/workshop attendees as we start the conversation. However, if this is all they read then of course their next question is going to be ‘so why should I bother’ – hopefully you’ll have another list soon with 25 reasons to say yes to social media! Thanks for a great blog post!
November 18th, 2009
Jeff, your experience might reveal the answer to your question: 30 out of 300 isn’t the best you’d hoped for, I imagine. The answer is also revealed in the word “blindly.” It suggests little in the way of purpose and strategy. Maybe YOUR FB fans shouldn’t be your COMPANY’S FB fans. Does Aunt May really care to be a fan? What about the people who aren’t your personal FB fans, but are your prospects and referral sources. Perhaps you should focus there.
In short, #8 challenges you to think strategically. There is nothing strategic about working blind, and sometimes the easy way out is just that — a way out. As Mike points out above, social media is all about building relationships…and you can’t build relationships by dealing with individuals as a mass audience.
Thanks so much for reading and posing the question. Hope I helped.
November 18th, 2009
Mardy, great idea! I just may take you up on that suggestion. Thank you for the kind words.
November 18th, 2009
Thanks for the answer, you have a good point.
I was expecting low numbers to join; the people receiving the invite would make the choice if they where interested in the links and videos that we are providing.
I understand what Mike is saying, to build relationships means more fans, which could lead into revenue. My aunt (just keeping the same scenario, I don’t have any aunts or uncles on Facebook, haha), is already a built relationship. She became a fan to support me (as well as the friends that joined from my invites). As long as they are on a computer, they are my audience since that PC or laptop could start to crash, beep constantly or blowup and hopefully they think of us first.
I hope you see where I am coming from. I do understand not going around and mass e-mailing everyone, or even DMing random people on Twitter to join. However, I think there is an exception with Facebook, the ignore button is very easy to click. My contacts on Facebook all know me (in person or otherwise), so it is more of motivational “hey, look what I’m doing now, check us out” invite than a mass-spam of invites.
December 21st, 2009
By popular demand, we have just posted the mirror-image companion piece: 25 Social Media FAQs, to which the answers are all YES!
http://identitypr.com/blog/2009/12/social-media-faqs-yes/
December 28th, 2009
Love this post!
I am going to have my clients read this.
January 5th, 2010
this is real time practical faq which need to know. thanks
March 12th, 2010
Nice article because I have actually experienced issues in Number 3 and 10 are really the most common with most clients wanting to get direct results. It is tempting to delete negative comments but ideally this will only generate more negative comments. It’s how you deal with the comments that should be important. Hopefully in the future, we should be able to monitor how successful social media is for the organizations. you might find the following link helpful too http://bit.ly/cyTN46
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