Failure As A Teacher: Why Social Media Doesn’t Always Have To Work.

We’re very focused on the ROI of social media right now, the measures of success and proof of its legitimacy. Rightfully so, we’re determined to make sure that our efforts deliver or create value, mesh with our business goals, elevate our brand and integrate with our communication and outreach strategy.

But does every initiative have to succeed to be valuable? I say no.

There are plenty of examples of epic failures in social media like the Wal*Mart fiasco, and probably hundreds if not thousands of examples of smaller, quieter failures. Not all of them exploding in a fiery inferno of crashtastic glory, but just the meager whimper of defeat. Without failure, can we really ever define or appreciate success?

Failure teaches us several things, like:

Perspective. When you are the steward of a brand, its champion and sherpa, it can be really easy to avoid seeing the forest. Failing at something makes you shift your viewpoint and see things from a different angle.

Perseverance: Sound social media strategy is a long term commitment, scary though that may be for some. Getting knocked down tests your mettle, and separates those who are in it for the long haul from those who are in it for instant gratification.

Reflection. By far the hardest part of owning up to failure is the question “why?”. It’s hard to take a pragmatic stance and critical eye, and turn it on yourself. Especially if your initiative was your “baby” for a time, it can really sting to admit that you had something wrong. The best part is that in order to right the ship, you have to take stock of the real reasons why something didn’t work, and fix them. (And yes you guessed it, that in and of itself takes time, effort, and dedication.)

Engagement. Ah, the irony. I put this here because I firmly believe that many failed social media initiatives were hatched in a fishbowl, without giving a fig for the people who might actually be – *gasp* – the target of said initiative. Instead of looking at these endeavors through a different, more transparent lens, we marketers and communicators may try to use a two-way mechanism to push out a one-way message. By failing, we might look to our community for feedback, and uncover some valuable learnings.

Culture Shift. By having a candid conversation about all of the above, you may discover that there are changes you need to make to your very culture in order to allow social media to thrive. Breaking down silos, for example, or empowering and trusting people outside your communications department to forge connections with your customers.

The Definition of Success. You may have thought that driving traffic to a site was your measure of success, but when that doesn’t happen, perhaps you’ll discover that your customers want to hear from you differently. Maybe you’ll find that while downloads of your video were initially the goal, the feedback you got in the comments was enough to drive product innovation. Simply put, sometimes failure is defined by the goals you set out to achieve in the first place, but hidden successes are there all the while.

Do you think that we have to keep failing in order to ultimately triumph? Does a failed social media endeavor mean that social media itself is irrelevant or inappropriate? Can we learn to better measure success by analyzing the shortfalls? How have you dealt with something that didn’t go the way you planned? I want to know what you think.

Give to Receive: Why Being Personal is Paramount.

Why do you participate in social networks? Let’s even take this offline, and talk about why you participate in anything social in the first place.

Do you go to your block party armed with a pile of business cards and wondering how many people you can pitch while you’re there? You’re “that guy”. If a gathering with friends at a bar is always about who you might meet and drop your elevator pitch to, you’re “that guy”.

I don’t want to be that…er… girl.

There’s a small voice in my head of Alec Baldwin telling me I should “Always Be Closing”, but I’m just not in the game of life for that reason alone. I’m probably breaking the hearts of business advisors across the map if I tell them that meeting new people is fun for me for the interesting factor first. Sometimes I forget about the business factor altogether. But my gut tells me that my business will succeed through those relationships eventually. I’ve worked hard on being able to tell people who I am and what I do, but it’s equally important to me that they know that I love music, or that I’m a voracious reader, that I’ve broken 11 bones riding horses or that I’m a food geek (even though I suck at pairing wine).

My other “issue” is that I give. A lot. It brings me joy to give something to someone else – a gift, a bit of knowledge, help when they need it. I’m no Mother Theresa, but I really and truly love sharing bits of myself with people. It’s the human connection that drives me through just about everything that I do.

Now to the bigger point.

It doesn’t always have to be about selling something, or pitching something, or finding the angle. Sometimes it’s enough to be real, to be personal, to be flawed and to not take ourselves so damn seriously.  And hey you, business guy? That goes for you too. I’m much more likely to want to be part of your business circle if you make me part of your personal circle first.

In the wake of his epic Social Media ROI post, Jason Falls put out on twitter a phrase resulting from so much of the feedback (and I’m paraphrasing):

Businesses don’t get customers from social media, they keep them.

Why? Because your engagement across social networks – online or off – forges an interpersonal relationship that cannot be directly quantified in terms of sales numbers. And you know what? It shouldn’t be, dammit. I, for one, don’t want to be distilled into a number or a sale or a transaction or a click. And as a business owner, I want every one of my contacts and clients to believe in their relationship with me personally, because I truly care about their well being and success.

I do believe that relationships (and therefore social media) have an ROI, but some of them are far more human than they are operational. Part of it is a leap of faith, my friends. You have to trust in the golden rule a bit, and know that treating people well brings you good karma and success. Yell at me if you wish, but you cannot ignore the intangibles in business, no matter how hard you try.

So, here lies my brief manifesto for the day. I know I’ve beat this horse a bit to death lately, but it’s really important to me – as a person, as a blogger, as a business woman. If I don’t yet know you, please say hello.  You can find my phone number, email, and social network profiles all on this site. I mean it. You matter to me, and I intend to prove it.

image by notsogoodphotography

You, In A Nutshell.

I got skewered the other day at dinner, and I totally deserved it.

After a long day of conferencing and socializing, a new acquaintance asked me what I do. And not wanting to sound pitchy or overly promotional, and a bit networking weary (yes, it can happen), I answered simply “I’m a marketing consultant.”

To which my good friend across the table replied, with an indignant look of WTF on his face, “Excuse me? Wait a minute. ‘a marketing consultant’? Try again.”

Whoops.

This is someone who knows me well enough to know what I do and why I do it, and he was good enough and tough enough to call me on the carpet when I needed to be called. So I did a retake with my conversation partner, explained that “I build and bridge brands between an offline and online presence, and teach businesses to take a common-sense approach to marketing and social media.”  Much better.

Earlier that day, a woman in a conference session had asked a question of the panelists, inquiring about best practices for email marketing. One of them asked her what she did specifically, so they could give her a specific answer. She muttered something a bit vague about her industry, and that was all she managed. To think I was frustrated at her for not having an answer, and I didn’t even make good myself. (CC Chapman has an eloquent post about this very issue on his blog).

Why is this important? Well, beyond the obvious need to simply explain what you do, you have about 3 nanoseconds to catch and keep someone’s attention these days. If your description is boring and cookie cutter, no one will remember you. If it’s laden with too many fluffy buzzwords, you’ll come off as desperate or self important. People connecting with you want to get a snapshot of your capabilities and your personality in one, so don’t waste words.

So have you practiced your concise description of yourself lately? You, in a nutshell? Has it evolved? Don’t use big words. (Hint: if it scores big in Scrabble, skip it). Twitterers, can you fit it in 140 characters? (Mine doesn’t quite.)Try digging beyond the “what” into the “why”.

If someone stood you up in a room of people and asked you what you do, what would you say? Let’s have a nutshell-fest in the comments.

Image by tvol

Build a Bridge.

We’re speaking in tongues sometimes, I fear.

According to their most recent consumer poll, Forrester Research says that 75% percent of the population is involved in some form of social media, and they’re now touting social media as “mainstream”. But I’m still skeptical that while they may be part of social networks, most average users are still not associating themselves with the term. For instance, how many times have you done a Google search for something and found yourself clicking on a link to a blog? Were you aware that it was a blog? Do you think everyone is, or is it just another link to them?

It’s like the age old argument in marketing that I love and believe wholeheartedly: people do not put themselves in ‘demographics’ or ‘target audiences’ or ‘customer segments’. They’re just people, and their relationships with the companies they do business with are defined much more simply. Their choices of businesses are based on much more human factors, and I’m afraid we marketers have a tendency to forget that.

People participating in social media are not always defining it that way. They know they’re seeking out connections and like-minded people. They may even consider themselves active online. But if the people I meet on a day to day basis are any indication, social media is still a phrase that rings foreign, even if the interactions it fosters are familar and comfortable.

I think we have to be very careful that we’re not jumping all over the place calling social media “mainstream” and, as a result, assuming that everyone and everything understands us when we geek out over this. We still need to be discussing all of these tools, ideas, and concepts in terms that fit within a business framework (if, that is, we still intend to make them a viable part of business strategy, which I think they should be).

Perhaps one of the reasons we’re having trouble convincing our CEOs and CMOs of the ROI of social media is that we’re speaking in a language we don’t share with them. (Do I think their language needs to evolve too? Heck yes. But this for another post.)

Whereas social media enthusiasts know that by saying ‘community’ we’re refering to a collection of brand enthusiasts, they may not assume that specific of a definition. When we say ‘ conversation’ we know that means an engaged, mutual and transparent dialogue, but not everyone’s definition of that word is the same, and certainly not if you’ve been sitting in the corner office for a long time under traditional rules. We have to be clearer and much less jargon-y about what we mean to achieve through these media if we are to succeed in convincing our later adopters of their worth.

Does social media hold promise for the future? You bet it does. But its long term credibility is dependent upon its evangelists (including me – and I’m working hard at it) to break down the language we use and make it translatable, understandable, and universal.

We use a lot of warm and fuzzy words because we understand that the humanity in social media is critical for it to succeed. But we need to build bridges between this world and the last, between what was once mainstream, and what we’re saying mainstream is now. The seismic shift in communication, trust, authenticity and brand equity requires it if we’re all to succeed together.

Photo by Conner395

Why Follow Through Matters Most

The communication is the door opener, and connecting is only the first step.

We are hyper connected, full of singular transactions that make for instant and fleeing touchpoints. Posting or tweeting or friending is the hello, but its up to you to actually make the personal connection that kicks off the relationship. There is no web-based tool that does this for you, and the human factor cannot be manufactured.

Each day, the web is populated with even more one-way doors that stand open, hoping that someone will walk through them, but unfortunately no one is doing the ushering. How many Facebook groups have you joined as a show of support to a friend or colleague, only to have them grow stale and forgotten? Have you visited a blog or a site that encourages comments or feedback but has little participation from the author or company? Even more simply, how about filling out a contact form only to hear merely crickets in return?

Follow through matters, and can be the differentiating factor between someone posing as a community lover, and someone who truly grasps the essence of what it means to connect, interact, and belong.

Follow through proves that you aren’t viewing the connection as a transaction, but rather want to embrace the value of humanity in business, and make good on whatever outcome you’ve promised.

Follow through is an important step on the path to building trust among your community. And today more than ever before, trust is a currency, and its value is rising.  Uncertainty and fear in an economy breed mistrust; the sense of looking over your shoulder to see who might be shilling you next. It’s validation of your relationships, and protection of the assets you value most, which – when the chips are down or missing altogether – may just be your network and your integrity.

Follow through is the “2″ in the 2-way conversation meme. It’s the other side of the conversation, the give back. It’s the piece of the puzzle that goes “snap” when you set it in place, letting your community and your network know that you’re not just there to open the door, but you’re there to greet and welcome them in as well.

Far too often, we’re faced with superficial business practice that at best fleeting and at worst, disingenuous. We owe it to ourselves and the communities we’ve worked so hard to nurture to cultivate and organically grow these relationships, on a human level. After all, a hello is not the endgame of a conversation, but the beginning.

image by Clare Marie