Article for Wednesday, 19th of January 2011

This article "Five hidden secret of social media failure" was very instructive and I would like to share it with you.

Social media are the new marketing tools for the companies today and many of them invested in these tools to increase their visibility and potentially, their market share... However, they were also many not having benefited from this investment and not being able to justify such a waste. Here are the reasons for their failure:

•  The myth of planning: the problem of marketers was not that they did not plan enough but rather that they planned too much! Why? Social media are very new and constantly changing, evolving so that it is impossible to forecast on the long-term, contrary to what marketers did. In addition, the selling process via social media is different from what actually happen in real life. Sellers may not seize the opportunities at the right time on social media as the selling methods are different and the moment to conclude as well.
• Not just goals-metrics: The problem is that many marketers and companies in general do not understand that social media are not only necessary for increasing revenue, they also have ancilliary added value, other benefits. Beyond the quantitive aspect (revenue, sales), a qualitative aspect cannot be neglicted. It includes information, competitive intelligence, insight,  a new supplier or partner, publicity, brand awareness, an idea, customer insights...
• Why the boss matters?: Top management should sponsor, encourage the project and imply all the relevant teams on the project. Small wins are also the best way to successfully achieve goals and is better than willing to do everything in one time
• Beyond marketing: For now, the traditional use of social media is by marketers and any services that engage publicly from B to C. How about using social media internally? Your team could benefit from this tool by learning from each other, communicating better, collaborate and innovate.
• The curse of the social media know nothings: Digital marketing is quite new and the problem for companies is to hire the right person. What are the necessary skills, competencies we should expect from a Digital marketer? Tendency is to hire young professional with no knowledge of marketing but who excel on facebook, twitter, blogs etc. That can become a reason for the failure of your strategy...

I think this article was very clear and set the right questions. It is important to understand that social media work differently and we cannot apply the traditional methods of selling and it is also important to realize that social media give you more than an opportunity to sell. It is a way to learn (from clients, competitors, your products and company pros and cons), to have a free database and to increase loyalty. The use of social media at the internal level was also a very clever idea and it could be adopted very soon by companies. I was mostly interested in the question of the professional skills necessary to become a good digital marketer. For my part, the question would be quickly answered: I would definitely hire a great marketer and train him or her on the use of social media rather than a "skilled social networkers" with no or almost no knowledge of marketing.