Social media in business: Do's and don'ts of social media engagement

The push to adopt social media will often come from the marketing department. Marketers see social media as a gift from the gods of branding. Here is the chance to appeal directly to the audience, over the heads of media companies with their exorbitant advertising rates, unverifiable circulation or viewing figures, indirect response mechanisms and pesky journalists who present the brand in such an unflattering light.

The risk is that the organisation cannot control what is said about it in social media channels in the way that it can with traditional advertising. But as Oscar Wilde said: “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

The more opportunistic marketers also see social media as a way to build their careers and hike their salaries by proclaiming themselves gurus in a field that is little understood by senior management. They will play on the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) among managers that the organisation must have a social media presence or competitors that have got in early will “eat our lunch”. Yes, it’s 1997 again.

But when the fog of FUD has settled, what will social engagement look like? It may be a corporate Facebook page that attempts to engage consumers with the brand using various inducements. Or it may take the form of involvement with services such as discount company Groupon. It may involve a conventional blog, or micro-blog, such as Twitter, which encourages consumers to comment and build up a body of user-generated content (UGC).

“There should be a distinction between social networks, which are all about ‘me and my connections’, and online communities, which are all about ‘us and the subject in which we have an interest’. They use similar tools but the people on them are in different modes,” says Charlie Osmond, managing director of Fresh Networks.

“Social networks are like being in the pub with some mates. Is this the right place for your brand to be? Companies ask ‘how can we use social media to reach new customers?’. But it’s more valuable to think of your existing customers. This is where the most long-term value is in social media for business,” he adds.

Whatever form engagement takes, one of the first questions is who is allowed to interact with consumers.

In the conservative model, only a few select people within the organisation or an external marketing agency form a “brand advocacy” team whose job it is to take care of consumer interactions.

This might lack “authenticity” in that it will be obvious to consumers that their interactions are managed through a corporate filter. But it will be fairly easy for IT to administer.

In the extreme model every employee becomes a brand advocate. This could
convey maximum authenticity in a tight-knit startup where every employee is
committed to agreed values. But it could cause chaos in large organisations where there might be a high staff turnover or which have grown by multiple acquisition and still maintain separate corporate narratives. Nor will it suit organisations that have a culture of secrecy or insist on a single voice.

Social media engagement for the rest of us exists somewhere in between: an agreed group of social advocates drawn from various parts of the organisation who are as open and authentic as the organisational culture will allow.

For IT the task will be to manage the channels chosen by the organisation whereby this group build up “social authority” (reputation). The important thing here is that the organisation closes “the integrity loop”, in other words, that what is advocated by the group matches the practices of the organisation.

For example, there’s little point in the social advocacy team handing out excellent nutritional advice in social forums if the organisation derives profits from the raw material of obesity. Purchasing the organisation’s product or service should be a seamless and logical culmination of the social interaction, not a jarring disconnect.

“If you try to be something you are not it won’t work,” says Mark Johnson, community editor at ­The Economist.