Social Media Errors of Corporate Status Quo

The ZDNet article "2013 predictions for enterprise social media" got me thinking about the recurrent issues of social media vs. business enterprise status quo. 

What business enterprises still need to grasp is that social media marketing is about sharing and caring, not relentless sales hype and leveraging of brand promotions. 

"How can we get our message out there?" must be replaced with:

"How can we share our expertise, even when its not directly related to product sales, to help people solve problems, so that we can become Top of Mind Choice in our field?" 

Social media is your chance to be different, to alter the perception of corporations being haughty, uncaring, and interested only in profit, not people. Don't blow it by perpetuating the negative perceptions and seeking to squeeze maximum revenue out of social media participants. 

Treat people decently, enable them to solve problems, act like a normal human being, and increased sales revenue will follow. 

There is generally no real need to be spread out on every social media network, until you have a "dark social" that is murky and nebulous. Pick out a few priority social networks (eg, Facebook, GooglePlus Local, YouTube, Pinterest) and work those until you master them and are getting good ROI. 

Social media marketing must be aligned with SEO and web usability/content considerations, or it's just a waste of time.

Sharing expertise, providing insights and how to tips, and interacting with other participants are the guideposts for any company's social media strategy, and this is also where most companies fail miserably. 

Colossal error is to split off the social media as a separate culture. Social media must actually modify or revolutionize the entire corporation, not be a side project that smiles at customers, while the corporate culture remains aloof, arrogant, smug, and greedy. 

To do social media marketing effectively is to focus the entire corporation and all its activities on customer relations, customer loyalty, and brand differentiation. 

From the CEO on down, all employees must be caring and sharing, generous with expertise, practicing extreme altruism, amplify sincere friendliness and genuine compassion toward customers. 

To just "do social media" but not let social interactions reform and modify corporate operations and marketing in general is a huge mistake. 

You can't fake it in social media. You can't treat social media as just another one-way broadcast advertising media, or as populated by passive marketing targets to exploit.

ALSO SEE my article in InterBusiness Issues "10 Tips on Customer Service: Achilles Heel of American Business".

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