It’s funny how all of a sudden companies are finally jumping on the bandwagon of getting involved in social media including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Don’t get me wrong, this is great and I’m the first person to applaud this but “about time” and they still have a lot to learn.
The thing I notice hands down with Australian companies; they’re too reactive.
Back in 2009 with the US election I, like many people around the world, were watching closely each candidate’s travels across America voicing their strategies to win the vote of the US people.
Barack Obama was not only working the streets, phoning people every night personally, but he built an online strategy that included Mark Zukerberg’s right hand man and one of the key developers at Facebook.
Their strategy was simple; “people are online everyday so let’s talk to them.” A strategy in the end that paid dividends.
Now that was 2009. Even Fox & Friends was doing their own “Facebook Q&A” on air live pre-election that year; Sunrise just incorporated this late last year.
Everyday I live and breathe social media. I might be biased in some respect with my thoughts but I did work for a radio station for two years and have seen that side of advertising.
Social media is not going to go away and you’ve probably heard that plenty of times already. Well, have you done anything about it yet?
Trust me, if your company is not thinking about it then your competitor is.
There are a number of critics out there willing to criticize the value of social media to businesses and I guess they have a point, in Australia that is. Why? Because social media is still a new media that most people don’t understand. In the States, it’s now the norm.
We’ve grown up being taught “advertise on radio, advertise on TV, advertise in the paper.” You’ll hit this amount of people, this amount of people will hear your message. That’s fine, but how many of those people will react to your ad? I can’t tell you and you can’t measure it.
Back to my thoughts on Australian companies being too reactive. They are, without question. With every company I’ve dealt with in relation social media, it’s a case of “What’s this, how do we measure that, why do you do this?” etc etc.
The simple reason for this is most companies still don’t understand the power.
Spending tens of thousands of dollars in one month advertising on a freeway billboard seems to be acceptable. We accept these huge fees for advertising and yet companies are not willing to provide small budgets to social media.
Your customers can’t talk to you via a billboard, they can’t receive an instant response via a newspaper article. If customers want answers, they won’t call, they won’t email you via your website – especially if they view your website via their smartphone and realize that your website is setup like a desktop not a mobile app and it’s hard to read – that’s time consuming.
The other thing that I’m continuing to notice is the amount of companies advertising “Like us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter” incorporating the iconic logos in TV ads or in the newspaper.
That’s fine – but if I type in Coca Cola on Facebook, how many Coca Cola Facebook Pages are there? All of a sudden you’ve lost that potential new customer – not that Coca Cola has that problem – but you know what I mean.
If you are going to advertise in the newspaper that you are on Facebook, add in your link. For example, our client Outback Jacks links are: Facebook.com/OutbackJacksAUS and twitter.com/OutbackJacks
If you don’t know how to apply for a Facebook URL, then this is what I’m talking about; you need to research and understand this.
Get your digital space professionally setup, either employ a social media company like White Echo or ask one of your employees to spend more time researching this space because your brand is being mentioned right now.
If you would like to discuss this or anything further relating to social media and how it could benefit your business, then please don’t hesitate to get in contact with me either twitter: @JeffWhite34 or contact us: info@whiteecho.com
3 Comments
Hey Jeff, good article. But I wondered while reading whether they are reactive or scared? I speak to many business owners who are worried about putting their foot in it via social media. As a journo I often get asked what business owners should do if they get themselves into trouble online – careless remarks that offend someone.
Both and great comments. Customers want to know what’s happening and it’s a great way for companies to keep their customers informed instantly. With regards to being scared because of remarks, they need social media to be serviced and monitored hence the reason why we at White Echo provide this service. Question is: if companies are scared, what are they hiding?
Haha…I don’t think they’re hiding anything, just think they’re hearing about social media-based PR disasters like GASP and Papa John’s “lady chinky eyes”. Another question (sorry!)…what’s your opinion with people “friending” clients on Facebook? As in, connecting clients with your personal page?