Surprisingly or not surprisingly, a large number of companies got confused with their 24-hour clock on the last day of 2015. Instead of tweets and other social media messages going out at midnight on January 31st, they programmed them for midday on December 31 or January 1 – opening themselves up for some ridicule. As someone who has been using social media over the past few years, pre-programming content is not a good idea.
The Internet is full of mistakes that range from being tragic to funny, however they all give the same impression. The face is that if a company, brand or celebrity cannot be bothered to manage its social media in real time, then it does not understand what is going on in the world. Social media is meant to be a two-way conversation, but tools like these are making social media just like billboards and magazine advertisements.
It is like throwing a bottle into the sea with a message in it and thinking that everything will be the same once it is found – this is the problem with brands and their social media today. There will be no news of the impact to change the dynamics of a conversation, lacks context, thinking it won’t affect your company’s reputation and that your words are immediately forgotten. Once your message is out there, it is out there so make it worth it.
My advice is to keep control of communication and above all, do things sincerely. Find people within your industry with something to say and establish a genuine conversation. Let’s not forget that we use social media for awareness, to connect with our consumers and to listen to what they are saying. When you compensate the last two reasons, then your social media efforts are doing little for you and your brand.
Using scheduling tools can be very convenient and I do want to say that they are useful in situations such as live events – instead of posting details or guests as well as photos and quotes of everyone having fun, you can most certainly have some of the important information surround the event scheduled as you wrap up last minute concerns.
Overall, I am writing to remind you to be aware of how you are managing your conversations on social media and to evaluate if you are having real conversations or not – make sure that it is always a two-way street.
Advisor Abbate 