Geoff Livingston, a PR professional whose blog (The Buzz Bin) is a platform for discussing social media and related stuff, wrote a refreshingly honest post today called “Blog Last.” In essence, it’s a plea for companies to stop thinking that throwing a blog up is the only key needed for entry into the magic kingdom of Social Media, or Web 2.0, or whatever you may call it.
He’s not trashing blogs per se (although he’s clear in his opinion that “starting a corporate blog was a big deal three or four years ago….”), but rather he’s suggesting that the social media universe is ever expanding and no one’s waiting around for that special post XYZ company slaps up on their corporate blog (or more pointedly: “…canned BS on a “new” platform called a weblog”). He’s sparklingly clear that:
If you do not participate in a community, if you are not engaged, pushing one way content at people will more than likely fail. It also flies in the face of what many of the best bloggers teach. Great social media begins with research and listening, then participation. Only then do you determine how to create content (see Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs
).
Companies need to focus their bucks on truly understanding the vast universe of social networks out there before committing to one thing, like a blog, only to have it fail because the voice is potentially 1) lost in space, 2) not relevant to your customer base, 3) left to malinger without internal ownership.
The deal is: any social media strategy requires hard work and lots of it. As one commenter put it:
These people aren’t Kevin Costner and this isn’t the Field of Dreams. “Build it and they will come” just doesn’t happen in this world, at least not anymore.
A good chunk of the discussion is focused on The Blog Council, what it does and doesn’t do, and whether or not companies are wasting a thousands a year by belonging to it. I figure that most companies are playing a serious game of catch-up and any help is good help at this point, but they are likely looking in the wrong places for an easy answer–simply because that’s what most of us do when we’re unsure of next steps.
Finally, Geoff’s post is focused on marketing initiatives, but the same holds true–very true–for post-purchase communication channels that leverage social media. I lump “Service” in with the broad field of everything that happens to the customer after they buy simply because that’s in my DNA from Amazon days. Service initiatives are tentative at this point, and rather than do the hard work of figuring out how social communities can work for the company, most are opting for a don’t-go-there approach (with some notable exceptions like Comcast and Zappos–the poster children for social media corporate-style).
Social media is mature enough now to be approached with a thoughtful strategy that involves a strong team, a budget and a plan.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Geoff Livingston // Dec 17, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Thank you for this fair and balanced review. I am glad the post worked for you. I’ll keep trying!
2 Snotty // Dec 17, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Thank you for that Comcast link–it will prove most useful when I email them a giant middle finger.
I think the Buzz Bin is fantastic and LOLed@’canned BS’… so true. I am always on the lookout for companies who are doing it right, or at least attempting to do so. A company that changes with technology and keeps up with the world around them is one that will ultimately be successful– I like knowing who to throw my retail dollars/link support behind.
3 Pocketbook // Mar 5, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Pocketbook
Interesting point of view,I’ll try to remember
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