Social Media Still Facing Stigma In Business
June 04, 2008 |
In spite of the recent upswing in early adopters using social media sites like Twitter, FaceBook and FriendFeed to improve their businesses, a shockingly high number of companies are getting left behind as they refuse to embrace this new technology. Stuck in a rut based in misunderstanding, they cut employees off from the online world, a decision which leaves them trailing behind their more innovative competition.
The inspiration from this article came when I had to send a real, paper fax while at an office today. I realized how long it had been since I plugged in my own fax machine, let alone sent anything by fax at all. I have been scanning and sending documents for years now to operate a truly paperless home office.
I became curious, so I asked the business owner about internet time for his staff. I was told that the company discouraged internet use, going so far as to only have two email addresses for the entire company of 30 people. What would make him choose to keep his company so isolated, when he could benefit froma larger presence online? Fear. Granted, this person is an extreme example, but the fear of new media is very real, nonetheless.
Even after all this time, many old world employers not only don't understand new media, and they fear the impact it might have on employees. Because they can only focus on the small picture of office productivity and how much "ownership" they have of a person for 8 hours a day, they lose sight of the ways that new media and social applications can actually help their office become better.
Focusing on the big picture and how social media can help your business grow is becoming more and more essential. Is everyone on social sites like FaceBook, Twitter or FriendFeed ? No, but a business's up and coming target demographic is, and its employees most likely are. It's time for businesses to loose the fear and embrace the social.
I love using Gary Vaynerchuk as an example of someone in an old world business who is using social media in the best way possible to grow and expand his business and his brand, but he isn't the only one. Companies like Zappos are using social media as well. Will It Blend commercials by BlendTec have dominated YouTube for years. If these people can make wine, shoes and a high strength blender exciting for the young social media crowd, imagine what other companies could do if they were willing to try.
Other reasons companies give for eschewing social media include a fear of having sensitive data compromised, a fear that employees might do things online that reflect badly on the company, a fear that sensitive company secrets may leak, a fear that productivity will drop and more. Fear only serves to hold you back. I see social media as a way to get your brand out there, to weed out employees who are careless with their image and the company image, and upgrade security practices to embrace new technology.
The economy is changing at lightening speeds. It is global, it is fluctuating, in many places it is thriving in spite of (or perhaps because of) a slowdown in the United States economy, and it is within a company's reach if they are willing to stretch for it and try something new. Go ahead and let your employees spread the word about your company online. Develop a strategy for marketing that involves social medi, including creating pages for your company on exisiting site like FaceBook so that your demographic has a chance to embrace you on their own terms – take some risks. Companies will be surprised how fast they can grow their business by responsible social interaction that doesn't involve restrictions on their employees or spam to other internet users.
Image courtesy TechDigest.Tv
Warren Buffett once said "There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult" and I think that's the case when it comes to the agony of social media proponents.
I really don't know where this notion that companies "fear" social media comes from. To be sure, many companies are bureaucratic and most comfortable with the status quo, but my experience is that most business executives are quite open to anything that can help their businesses succeed.
This is the problem: there's very little quantitative evidence that companies are, on a large scale and in a consistent manner, using social media to make tangible, non-negligible impacts on their businesses.
How much quantitative evidence is there that "Companies will be surprised how fast they can grow their business by responsible social interaction that doesn't involve restrictions on their employees or spam to other internet users"?
I've yet to see more than the occassional anecdote and I certainly haven't seen any publicly-traded companies come out an announce that they've grown their businesses and/or reduced their marketing costs significantly through the use of social media.
I won't argue that there isn't some qualitative value in "conversing" with consumers and customers. There always has been and companies have been doing this in a variety of ways for decades.
That said, I think social media isn't being taken seriously by many business executives because it's being sold improperly. It would receive a warmer reception if people involved with it didn't make claims about how it can boost the bottom line before there's any evidence it can. Most executives aren't stupid – they understand when somebody is selling them on something that isn't realistic and can't be backed up.
The cost of a Facebook page, for instance, may be a drop in the bucket for a large brand, but when you look at most Facebook pages, they're like ghost towns. Even those that have more than a few thousand members typically have very limited activity, which makes sense. Users are not going to spend hours interacting on the Tide Facebook page, for instance. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to run the numbers and watch the activity levels to figure out that there's no way the page is going to do anything for the brand.
The bottom line is that if you try to sell me a Toyota Corolla and describe it as a sports car, I'm natually going to call BS. Either tell me you're selling a compact car or show me the Ferrari 430 Scuderia.