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The Ultimate Social Media Marketing Mistake
November 4, 2013 |Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
PCB manufacturers make quite a few mistakes in social media: Wrong message, wrong social network, bizarre posting frequency, hiring kids with no business experience to do their social media, and even posting hilariously self-serving stuff that will never work. But even done wrong--horribly, horribly wrong--nothing is worse than quitting.
The social media landscape is littered with companies who have set themselves up on social media only to disappear. Here's a typical scenario: A PCB manufacturer suddenly unveils a Facebook company page (insert trumpet fanfare here). It looks pretty good, too (I smell someone’s college-age son or daughter behind this, the website sure doesnt look this good). And look! For the next three weeks there are three or four posts a week. But then, in the fourth and fifth week, there are two posts,and by the three-month mark the page has gone silent. And that was 10 months ago.
Now here's the thing: The company in question may have good reasons their social network died a slow and premature death, but let's look at how a possible customer would view those reasons:
- “We got busy with other priorities.” -- What the prospective customer hears: “We make commitments without really understanding what they entail.”
- “It didn't work fast enough.” -- What the prospective customer hears: “We have no idea why it didn't work.”
- “It doesn't work in this industry.” -- What the prospective customer hears: “It didn't work for us. We have no idea why it seems to be working for some of our competitors, but we would rather just sweep the whole thing under the rug.”
- “We did not know what it would entail." -- What the prospective customer hears: “We like to do things without planning beforehand."
- “We had cutbacks." -- What the prospective customer hears: “We may be having financial difficulties.”
To quote from the eminent philosophers in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (from the Tale of Brave Sir Robin): “When danger reared it’s ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled.”
That's how absurd these companies look...and sound. They jumped into social media (good!) with no plan (bad!), no idea of the commitment involved (uh-oh), and, at the first sign of adversity (gee, this is lots of work), they bailed out. How does this look to a prospective customer? It looks like they give up easily. These days prospective customers have many ways to check out a company and social media is prominent among them.
Today’s takeaways are: Plan your use social media, get someone involved who has experience in sales and in your line of business, and understand the commitment required.
And don’t quit.Bruce Johnston is a sales consultant specializing in social media and especially LinkedIn. He has over 25 years experience in high-tech sales and management. He can be reached at brucej@practicalsmm.com or through his profile on LinkedIn.