How to Kill Your Brand With Social Media

You've got to love social media - it can make a brand immediately relevant, personal, and share-able. Of course, like any other marketing vehicle, you should proceed with caution. Why? Because social media, when done poorly or recklessly, can be as damaging to your brand as negative publicity, so, as a public service, here is my list of how NOT to do social media.

Forgetting to Ask "So What?"
Why should people care about your brand? Is it appropriate and logical for your brand to use social media? Many brands forget to ask themselves these questions before engaging in social media, thus blindly blogging and blasting their message on social sites. Their messages then lack focus and purpose.

Showing up empty-handed
I like to think of social media as a giant cocktail party. Brands need to remember to bring something to the party and not just talk about themselves. Using social media to only promote products will get you dropped from "follow" lists and possibly banned from some sites.

Too Much Too Soon
Have you ever been "friended" on a social media site by a corporation, only to be greeted by spam and incessant updates and sales propaganda? Enough already. Desperation is like those body sprays that are geared toward teenage boys - obvious and a real turn-off. Engage your audience, listen to what they say, and develop a genuine relationship with them. Repeat after me: social media is NOT advertising.

Losing the Human Touch
Consumers love to reach out to an actual human being, not a machine, so lose the "bot" - unless, of course, that is your brand's persona and it's rocking a cult-like status.

Being All Things to Everyone
Your brand should not try to be everywhere at the same time, let alone on every possible social site. Why? First, it would be impossible to do it all and do it well. Most importantly, it wouldn't make sense. When investing time and and money into a social media strategy, the key word is strategy - you need to be deliberate and targeted in your actions. Your research will show what sites your demographic frequents - start there.

Not Including Social Media in Your Crisis Communication Plan
When your brand is criticized on a social media site, you need to respond immediately on that site if you have any chance of containing the damage.  Amazon and Domino's are perfect examples of how not to use social media for crisis communications - they were both slow to respond, thus indirectly allowing the story to spread throughout the web and the media.

Not Committing to the Relationship
It's one thing to start a blog and establish a social media presence. It's another thing entirely to do those things on a long-term basis. Maintain your relationships and make new ones. Update your blog regularly and respond to feedback.

Not Being Realistic
Do you remember begging your parents for a guitar and then giving up after three lessons when you realized you were probably not going to be the next Jimi Hendrix? The same thing applies to social media - slow and steady wins the race. Don't expect immediate results. If you build it, they will come.

Comments

[Susan Lynch]

Awesome blog! The world should thank you for putting into words what so many advertisers need to hear in order to win ~ and keep ~ our business. This list should be printed on posters and tacked to office walls in companies near and far. Kudos for a terrific piece!

[D]

Great article..

[Dan Harris]

Great post. I highly recommend businesses and individuals alike to think before you leap. You need a strategy. As a marketer myself I have succeeded and I have failed. I can tell you why I failed because I planned to assess the failure so I wouldn't fail a second time.

Here is a model I follow - It's called A STAR.

1. A for Assess: Assess what you want to do on social media, why, on what, when and who will do the work. It is work!

2. S for Strategy: define what your strategy will be, what your goals are, which audience you're trying to connect with, what voice will you use and what value will you offer those who follow or connect to you or your business. Determine what is and will be success for you so you can tell if your strategy is working.

3. T for Tactics: What tactics will you use as a business. Will you launch a Facebook page, Twitter bot, have all your employees join Twitter as the brand, Create a group on Linkedin, Create a MySpace account, hold Twitter events or sponsor social media gatherings, conferences and events. There are so many tactics I could'nt put them all here.

4. A for Action: This is where most businesses fall short. They gail to properly execute and take action. They may start big, but the fizzle soon after starting because they don't see immediate results. The thing you need to realize is Social media means you have to be social. You have to engage on a regular basis. You have to provide value and win friend, before you can influence a purchase.

5. R for Results: In the strategy section hopefully you defined what you expected, in the tactics you should have estimated what each tactic should do for you. Now after the action you should check your sales, check your website traffic, check messages, tweets, posts, and more from the sites you manage.

After reading your site I had to post this. If you have a process and a plan in place you will succeed more than you fail.

As an army drill sargent told me..Plan your work and work your plan. It works.

Dan Harris
@8101Harris on Twitter
Dan On It at http://www.danonit.com/blog1
Founder, TasteCasting http://www.tastecasting.com