It’s Not About You: Where Organizations Miss the Boat on Social Media
By Matthew Lees
Way back when (in the 80′s, perhaps?) I remember watching a stand-up comedian do a funny and perceptive routine on how magazine titles had changed over the years to reflect important changes in society. I’m paraphrasing — the old memory chips aren’t as good as they used to be — but here’s the gist:
Early on, there was a magazine called “Life.” It was pretty much about everything.
Later, someone came up with a magazine didn’t have such high aspirations, but still looked to include a large portion of what life is about. It was called “People.”
Apparently that wasn’t specific enough. So a new magazine hit the market: “Us.” It wasn’t about all people. Just some people. Not those people, of course. Us people.
Guess what! Even that was too broad. Who wants to know about Us? That still covers too much ground. Much better to focus on what’s really important. So what do we get? The magazine “Self.”
What’s next? Maybe they’ll just sell mirrors in the shape of magazines, so you can just stare at your own reflection.
There are times it seems the social Web is going down a similar path, where it’s all about “You.” What You’re doing. Who You know. Who knows You. What You sell. (And many of the times where it’s ostensibly not about You, it really is. Kind of like the old joke about the egotist, “So enough about me. How do you like my tie?”)
But what I’m really talking about here is organizations, not individuals. It’s You, the company, not You the person, who’s largely missing the boat on social media.
OK, I admit (happily) that it’s not really all about You out there. This is demonstrated by the organizations that support their own online communities, and engage on social networks in transparent, conversational, collaborative ways. And, yes, it’s appropriate for some things to indeed be about You: customers and prospective customers do want to know about Your businesses, how Your products and services can help them, and how and why You’re the best in the business; and members want to know about Your associations, and how You are helping those You’re supposed to help.
But social technologies sure make it easy to make it about You.
Yet the organizations that successfully leverage social media are the ones that don’t go this route. They’re the ones that make it about Them. Who’s Them? They’re your customers (or users, members, subscribers, readers, business partners, employees, or whatever audience is relevant and whatever terminology you prefer).
So how do you make it about Them? Here are some thoughts:
- Take Their Viewpoints and Ideas into Account. Crowdsourcing is a great way to make it about Them. Today’s technologies make it relatively easy to run a crowdsourcing program that gives Them a place not only to give you their ideas for making your business better, but also to vote on and rank each others’ ideas. The outcome is that the best and most feasible ideas bubble to the top, ready for you to take the actions that are most important to Them.
- Support What They Care About. Hard as it may seem to believe, They are interested in more than just your company, your products, and your services. So don’t just talk about your stuff; add some value related to the other things they care about. You can do this by blogging about trends you see in your industry, sponsoring an online community where They can to talk with, connect with, and learn from each other, and tweeting fast-breaking information that’s timely and relevant to what’s important to Them.
- Make Them the Center of Attention. I remember an interesting networking tip. It suggested that you bring other people with you to networking events. In particular, bring someone who is looking for something new, such as a new job or new business. When the two of you are there, don’t talk about yourself. Act almost as if you’re your friend’s agent. Introduce her to other people, highlight what she’s good at; turn conversations towards her. You’ll be seen as a connector, and as someone who goes out of his way to help others. So your own networking stock will rise, not by blowing your own horn, but by making someone else look good. Extending this to social media means retweeting good stuff your followers say, spotlighting your customers on your Web site, asking them to share their stories on your blogs, and helping them “strut their stuff” (as Patty Seybold would say) on your online community.
The promise of social media is that, when we’re all engaged and communicating with each other, all boats rise. You are part of that equation, but so are They.
How are you making it about Them?
Back to the blog
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Best Practices, Social Media Industry, Social Media Trends. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
4 Responses to “It’s Not About You: Where Organizations Miss the Boat on Social Media”
Nice post Matthew. When we are approached by prospective clients, we can usually tell who will succeed quickly and who will need a change of focus in order to succeed with social media. Too often company teams are only interested in the end game of sales, leads, subscriptions, etc. without thinking about how to nurture their customers through an appropriate engagement cycle.
In social media, the engagement cycle means changing behaviors to include your efforts in the audience’s day-to-day, week-to-week, or month-to-month habits. To not consider behavior in your social media mix is to use social media in the same way that a spammer uses email. The focus cannot always be on “You” but rather it needs to be on “Them” instead.
We have developed best practices that show that for B2B companies, social media efforts should break down as follows: 50% Thought Leadership, 20% Industry Analysis, 15% Event Coverage/Promotion, 15% Product Information (YOU).
Yet we often see a more B2C breakdown instead. Our research shows that B2C brands use a social media mix that breaksdown as: 50% Promotion and Sales (Discounts), 25% Thought Leadership, 20% Industry Analysis, and 5% Press Release coverage.
When “You” concentrate on “You” and not “Them” you miss the idea of social media. “You” are important to your audience. If “You” weren’t there wouldn’t be visitors, but a clear focus on the message and content strategies is a big part of making social media effective. Remember that social media is a tactic for not only building business results, but also for nurturing your potential audience as well.
Mike
MatthewLees says: Those are interesting percentage breakdowns, Mike, and ones I’d think would be valuable benchmarks to followers of your blog. I expect that a large part of the reason why you’re seeing such a high percentage of Product Information (B2B) and Promotion and Discounts (B2C) is because that info is so easy for companies to get. Heck, that’s what marketing professionals are paid to create. So they have it at their disposal and, understandably, want to get it out there through any and all available channels.
Pulling together Thought Leadership content and Industry Analysis takes more planning and work. Perhaps additional resources, too, which can’t be easy to get these days, whether it’s taking some time from an existing employee’s schedule, or getting new headcount.
For the companies you’ve worked with that needed to be convinced of the wisdom of your advice 
, I’m curious as to how you’ve steered them toward a more customer-centric (and no doubt more effective) mix. Gentle persuasion? Metrics that proved your point? Fist fights?
Brute strength is always the best convincer….
Actually, there are so many examples of companies doing it right that once you show the research and examples the discussion changes to “how can we do the same?” We have quite a library of information that we use to help our clients going all the way back to 2000. Our examples are from name companies and large brands (both clients and others) that have done things well and those that have failed completely.
For our client examples, we also have the benefit of knowing the metrics which back up the tactic and content strategy approach we promote… nothing that would violate an NDA but rather trends that we’ve measured over time that include content strategy shifts marked against the resulting metrics.
Interesting insights, Matthew. I believe that, for the most part, the “them” in these communities want us to succeed. They have a lot invested in our brands and our products — literally and figuratively. And they’re there for us. The least we could do is let them know they’re appreciated.