Social Media Not Always the Answer

We've noticed a strong uptick in the number of small businesses telling us they are disappointed with their social media efforts. 

The main complaint is a lack of results.  The other issue we hear about is social media is too time consuming.

We're not the only ones hearing this.  Entrepreneur's Is It Time for You to Get Anti-Social does a nice job of describing the complaints.  Key quote:

"Amid the hype about social networks and the many positive things they can do to help businesses build a buzz come tales from the social media counterculture -- cases of trend-bucking entrepreneurs such as Wong making a strategic decision to de-emphasize social media ..."

This reaction is common with technology trends (and social trends also).  Fast growing trends almost always create a countervailing trend of people unhappy with the main trend. 

This is especially true when a technology is as over-hyped as social media.  The hype results in businesses using social media when it's not a good fit. 

This does not mean social media is not useful.  It just means it's not always useful. 

Comments

[Brian]

While we love social media at College Pro, we don't sell a lot of painting jobs using Twitter or Facebook. All of that marketing comes the old fashioned way... through knocking on doors, cold-calling, and word of mouth. Plain old face to face interaction still trumps new media when it comes to selling, in a lot of cases anyway.

[Anita Berlanga]

SM is useful but only to a point - for manufacturers, it's a great way to get basic information out - with the understanding that most customers don't have a whole lot of time to review Social Media. Tweeting all over the place makes them crazy and they will quickly tune you out!
Use Social Media judiciously and it can work well for your business.

[Geri Stengel]

Over-hyped or under-planned? Social media, like traditional media, have to planned to incorporate the strengths of each media, the demographics of the target audience, and the message you're trying to communicate. No one would set up a broadcast campaign without determining what programs your market watches, what your message points should be, etc. Social media are no different.

Social media results are disappointing because businesses and other enterprises, such as nonprofits, try to jump into the deep end without learning how to swim first. That, at least, were the findings of our August 2010 survey Nonprofits and Social Media: It Ain\'t Optional