Social Media – Stay Out of Irrelevant Conversations
If you are a company considering using social media or if you already use social medium you could learn something from some of the experiences of other companies. Whilst it is relevant to talk about their successes and positive experiences of social media, is also useful to mention some of the pitfalls. One of the pitfalls is actually trying to be too much part of the social media conversation. This happened last year with a large company which is well known in the UK.
For reasons that you are not entirely clear, although it is thought to be due to inexperienced users, the company name and users were becoming part of mainstream social media conversations. This meant that conversation that have no relevance to the company were being invaded by the company’s representatives for means of advertising their wears.
This is a difficult issue. Engaging in the conversation is one of the tenets of social media. Without it your campaign will falter and fail. However there has to be a degree of relevance. Your customers and consumers do not want to be plagued by sales messages and pictures. This is worse if those messages form part of a conversation that has no relevance whatsoever. Examples would be be Iranian repression.
This means that those people that are charged with looking after the campaigns for companies need to draw up a plan of how to engage appropriately in the conversations that have been, or are being, had. It goes without saying that the conversations that mention your company or service need to be highlighted by ourselves and you need to be part of that particular discussion. However, discussions that are not part of your immediate interest should not be invaded simply for the purpose of branding or for sales.