“Why would I want to like a Facebook Page for a plumber?” my wife commented after hearing the plumber’s on-hold message. “Because someone told them that they should have a Facebook page,” was my reply. The reason that most organizations say “like us on Facebook” and provide no reason why is because they can’t answer that pesky “why” question themselves.
With limited time and resources and ever growing list of ways to connect with people, it seems many fall victim to the shiny object syndrome. Hey, you should have a Facebook page. Are you on twitter? Everyone is on Pinterest, aren’t you? Since there is often no cost to open an account, many jump on the bandwagon. Now there are many great reasons to use a variety of tools, but I can tell you from experience that using them well is a whole lot different than using them.
A better strategy
A important element to success online is momentum. Have you ever clicked through to a Facebook page or Twitter link and found that they hadn’t updated in 6 months or there is nothing but a very self-focused stream of information? Did it leave you with a positive brand experience? The best strategy is to not do everything, but to build on success. Do what works and forget about the rest.
So how does one do this? Test, learn, and experiment. For one of our clients we only experimented with social media once we had taken care of the low hanging fruit – their website and their email marketing program. Once we had these machines working and working together, we had somewhere to point people (the website) and a way to build a longer term engagement (an email marketing program). We didn’t promote our social media presence until we had built enough momentum and learned what worked and what didn’t. Our experiments helped us understand that Facebook was not attracting our target audience, but Twitter was an excellent tool to engage. We still use Facebook, but all our decisions about what and when to post are dictated by what will give us the most exposure and engagement to our Twitter audience. Now we promote our social media, and have a clearly stated reason why.
Do something now
Before you update your Facebook page or send your next tweet, ask yourself why. If you can’t answer that question it is time to pause and develop a solid reason. Although, maybe you really do want to become Facebook friends with your plumber. Imagine the pictures you will see.
End that internal voice that keeps saying, “You are not taking advantage of all the new ways to communicate.” Get more confidence to let go of things that are not working, prioritize where you should spend your limited time and resources, and likely choose to do less so that you can get better results. Ask us about our Channel Balancing.
