This article is part of a series on social media success from Purple Stripe Productions.
Without a tangible status update and ‘friends & fans,’ it feels like there is no *proof* of our social media efforts. The sooner we can hit ‘publish’ – the sooner management sees we are actually working and not playing around all day on FarmVille.
Taking a step back, listening, and learning are all nice in theory, but ‘lazy’ in the business world. Action produces results. Listening is inaction. We define success in how quickly we rack up the number of fans, friends, status updates, ‘likes,’ and re-Tweets. Numbers we can count and reproduce on a chart. How can you be considered successful if you gained less fans this week than last? How can you justify to your management that your efforts are successful if you LOST a few followers?
The listening precursor is a real sticking point in a good number of companies. You can see the results of not listening in multiple facets of a company. Customer Service is reactive to problems and always on the defense. The Sales team struggles to keep up with unique product offerings until the demand of customers hits the tipping point. Research & Development work in silos far removed from end users. Marketing follows a safe and predictable path that fits nicely within the niche and genre of their industry. Human Resources is seen as the ‘heavy’ in the company. Information technology departments treat employees like teens that cannot be trusted with the Internet for fear of rampant porn viewing and personal online socializing resulting in millions of dollars of lost revenue due to unproductive worker bees.
The bottom line – handing in a status report with slow-gaining numbers is perceived as a failure in Corporate America. Fast. Quick. Instant. NOW. Because the technology (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) produce instant content, the perception is that success should be instant as well. Trust takes time.
Solutions are easy to identify, but hard to implement. Change is hard. It’s disruptive. It’s unproven.
