About this article

Read time:

4 minutes

Category:

Opinion, Sector knowledge

Social Media: Don’t just do it!

During my time working in the world of social media I have been staggered by the amount of organisations who have decided that their sole social media strategy should be founded on building a Facebook page, setting up a Twitter feed, or launching a YouTube channel. Precious marketing funds are spent for the sake of it, rather than to achieve a defined business objective.

They have no doubt been caught up in the hype that surrounds these social behemoths which are now household names and have their own entries in the Oxford English dictionary. Wanting to sound forward thinking and edgy in the boardroom they have put forward the “novel” idea that the company should be making waves on Twitter as fast as possible, or maybe their son or daughter has stumbled across a competitor’s Facebook fan page and they simply have to follow suit. In other words they are doing it because everyone else is doing it.

All this was certainly true when I started a previous social media role. A quick flick through the company’s annual report revealed a page along the lines of “our forward thinking digital strategy allows us to engage with our customers through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr”. In reality all it meant was they had a Facebook page, where potential students asked questions which went unanswered, a Twitter feed linked to their non-existent Facebook status updates, a YouTube channel with a host of random videos and a Flickr account which was being used as an organisational photo dump. In this state the social media was probably doing more harm than good.

Even with all the right intentions I have seen organisations set up a presence on various social media channels and then just sit back and wait expecting hundreds of people to suddenly interact with them in their new social space.

Last year I put together a proposal detailing how one of the UK’s largest metropolitan police forces could utilise social media to run a video competition promoting student safety. Sadly they didn’t take on board too many of the recommendations and decided to adopt an “if we build it they will come” approach. They set up a Facebook page and a YouTube channel but didn’t tell people about it. This ultimately led to the competition failing as no one knew about its existence. It is a shame, because the outcome could have been so different it was a great competition with an important message. The initial brief indicated they had the ability to target tens of thousands of students via email and a small advertising budget, so letting people know about the competition should not have been a problem.

The intention here is not to try and put you and your organisation off utilising social media. It is to highlight the fact that real thought and discussion needs to take place around how the different tools available can be used to benefit your business. Clear goals need to be set out, don’t just say we need a Facebook page or a Twitter feed. Identify why you need to use a certain channel, how it will be used and importantly who will be responsible for it. If you can’t answer these questions then maybe that social media channel is not for you at this point in time.

I hope to cover each of the main social media tools and channels in more detail over the coming weeks and months in order to give you some food for thought on how your business may benefit from using them, whilst also reviewing some of the lesser known but promising platforms

Finally, to illustrate the point of this post further I would like to turn back to the example of my previous employer to show that it is not all doom and gloom.

Over time we were able to build up a thriving community on Facebook which acted as a central hub for all of our other social media operations. Through this community we were able to answer questions from potential students and guide them through the application process. Many of these students represented thousands of pounds of revenue for the organisation alone, demonstrating a direct business case for doing social media well. Video guidelines were created and soon the YouTube channel was full of interesting and relevant content showing what the school had to offer (with this content then easily embedded on the website to make it more interactive).

I am only just scratching the surface here on how we were able to turn things around but I hope it clarifies the point that with just a little bit of thinking, planning and effort social media goes beyond a fashionable business fad and starts to become a useful business function. Don’t just do it; plan what you want to achieve and why. Then do it!

Chris Walmsley, Social Media Consultant, Skout PR

You can follow me @skoutchris

Make sure you keep up to date with all things Skout at Skout Stories on Tumblr!

About this article

Read time:

4 minutes

Category:

Opinion, Sector knowledge

Q&A with Alex Gladwin: What does it mean to be a trustee for an EOB?

Rules of engagement: do you need an AI policy?

Browse more blog posts

Posted on
byIsobelle Yoxall
As you may know by now, this year Skout went through the process of becoming an employee-owned business (EOB)! This is an exciting move that provides great opportunities for everyone connected with the business, not just for our employees, but for our clients and everyone we will work with in the future. As part of the process, an employee-owned trust...
Posted on
byClaire Lamb
In short, yes. But that answer would make this a really brief blog 😉. With the UK Government estimating that one in six UK organisations, nearly half a million companies, have embraced at least one AI technology, the chances are your employees are already using it – whether officially or unofficially. One thing that we discovered when we started to...
Posted on
byJames Weaver
In today’s digital-first world, we constantly receive breaking news and developing stories around the clock. The dawn of the smart phone and rise of social media has given us a world of information at our fingertips and major news organisations’ rolling coverage can be as theatrical and gripping as the plays of old. Just as Shakespearean tragedies gripped audiences, today...
Posted on
byRob Skinner
If you’re working in B2B marketing in the digital commerce technology sector you’ll know what an incredibly complex landscape it has become! As online buying both by consumers and businesses has evolved, the range of technologies available to help businesses selling or purchasing online or digitally has grown hugely. Today, your key audiences are being bombarded with marketing content covering...
Posted on
byJack Snell
Why was PR your chosen career?  Without it sounding like the biggest cliché in the industry, I just happened to fall into PR unintentionally. I applied to study journalism at Leeds Beckett University but they replied telling me that the course was already full, heart-breaking stuff 😔. Instead, they offered me a place on the public relations course, so I...
Posted on
byJames Bentley
You may have seen recently the brilliant news that Skout is now an employee-owned business as our founding shareholders, Rob Skinner and Claire Lamb, signed 100 per cent of the company’s ownership over to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) which acts on the behalf of our team. It’s a move that provides great opportunities for everyone connected with the business,...
Posted on
byClaire James
Generative AI (such as ChatGPT) has caused a bit of a storm in the marketing world but its power to transform is being embraced by other industries to significant advantage. In this blog I am looking specifically at the retail industry and how it is adopting GenAI to help shape the future of customer experience whilst also reducing costs. Creating...
Posted on
byLee Simpson
From Meet Ups to Expos, the tech industry is one that thrives on knowledge and best-practice sharing. Yet all too often tech events fail to hit the mark when it comes to offering tangible value, instead created by corporate machines as something of a vehicle for self-promotion.   Manchester’s Amy Newton is on a mission to change that, striving to reinvent...
Posted on
byRebecca Brown
AI has been the hot topic in our team meetings over the past few months, with the Skout team debating the pros and cons of its use. From using it to assist with desk research and providing inspiration for headlines through to transcribing interviews to help remove the need for extensive notetaking. Its flipside, however, has driven conversations around its...
Posted on
byHonor Williamson
As World Wellbeing Week draws to a close, we wanted to shine a light on wellbeing at work. While every area of wellbeing is hugely important in all aspects of life, it’s especially important in the workplace – we’re there nearly every day, after all! We spoke to Chris Snookes, Group Head of Marketing, Products and Markets at our client...

Send us a message

Download The B2B business relationship report

The B2B relationship renaissance – did digital kill it? The importance of relationships throughout the customer buying journey. Please complete the form below and receive a download link via email.