Blog: Social Media engagement doesn’t always have to be strategic
June 3, 2011
I got into a debate on this one recently and decided to try a quick exercise. My acquaintance made the point that any kind of social update from a business should always be on-message and have a point or goal. I disagree. Whilst I believe that’s a key aspect of social media engagement, there are times when it’s OK just to start the conversation. It adds to the community feel, generates traction and stickiness and takes close to no time at all. This kind of thing is easily interspersed with more important, outcome-driven updates (a job posting, an event launch, etc.)
I used my personal Facebook page to test this out, posting something completely irrelevant to me, in the same way a firm might post something irrelevant to them, just to spark activity. Almost immediately, it became clear that people were happy to take an open update like that and engage with their own interpretation. I was on my way to see a client when this debate occurred – so I used my phone to place this update on my personal Facebook page (c.300 friends, nothing outrageous).
By the time I left the client meeting there where a pile of comments left: anagrams of Milton Keynes, things to do there, even memories of growing up there years before. These updates came from people in the UK, Germany and even Australia.
My point is this: some companies worry about the time and resources necessary to use Social Media. Whilst there are times you’ll want to achieve a significant outcome, there are others where just igniting discussion is enough to maintain traction.
It doesn’t have to be that complicated.
June 3, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Completely agree James. ‘Engagement’ is the fundamental principle at the heart of ‘social’ media and authenticity is a key driver in this. Saying a quick ‘morning’ or replying to your fans on Twitter etc. may not be ‘strategic’ in the narrow sense, but it drives engagement and interaction – which is infinitely more important than sticking to rigid ‘brand messages’.
June 3, 2011 at 1:40 pm
As pointed out by the previous poster, the clue is in the name: ‘Social’ Media.
June 3, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Hello james,
Great post, however refering to your point :”My point is this: some companies worry about the time and resources necessary to use Social Media. Whilst there are times you’ll want to achieve a significant outcome, there are others where just igniting discussion is enough to maintain traction.”
1) is this not a strategy?
2)Traction – You mean engagement?
3)A significant outcome could be time intensive depending on the brand and their reach but see your point.
Keep up the good work!
Jimmy Cricket
June 3, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Interesting post.
A case, i think, of having a strategic social-media framework in place, but not to be too rigorous about it. For one, you lose out on the element of spontaneous, human interaction. And, also, sometimes you just don’t have the time and space to be focusing on social media strategy, but you just have enough time and space to do (or say) something to contribute to your social media efforts in general.
June 3, 2011 at 6:14 pm
[...] Blog: Social Media engagement doesn’t always have to be strategic (musingsfromsussex.com) [...]
June 6, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Interesting article and debate. I agree with Callum engaging and creating a community is one principle objective in building a presence on social media. But I’d go a stage further…what is your measure of success and how do you measure the impact of a “quick” hello or status update that you are eating cornflakes??
June 6, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Thanks for the comments all. In response to one aspect that’s appeared a couple of times, I suppose a short n sweet update that elicits activity IS part of a wider strategy. At least, I guess I’ve demonstrated it probably should be.
In terms of the last comment from Philip, if you’ve managed to engage a small subset of your community with only 3 words in less than 10 seconds, you’ve helped keep the page alive – so when you DO have a call to action, there’s more chance it will be visible and spotted. If I understand correctly, pages with higher activity get featured in news feeds more regularly.
Finally, I’d also offer the following response, on the subject of measurement: http://jmay.es/i2DA81 – enjoy!
July 19, 2011 at 8:35 am
[...] – for those who recall a previous blog where I railed AGAINST purely strategic content – this one is the [...]