Wednesday 31 May 2017

What should businesses tweet? Not this.

Social media. Some use it, some abuse it. Most people, however, just waste it. We are used to individuals using Twitter as an outlet for thoughts that would normally be filtered before they were ever published. But individuals are not governed by KPI's or ROI metrics.

Businesses, however, are different. They've heard about Twitter and know they should be on it. But when they are, they don't have a clue what to do. So they panic. Their attitude seems to be a 21st-century version of the Cartesian maxim: "I tweet, therefore I am."

But we should be issuing Anti-Social Media Behaviour Orders to some people responsible for their business accounts or those using personal accounts for business purposes. They need to understand that social media has to add value to their brand or be used to engage with customers in a meaningful way.

This phenomenon is at its worst, ironically, when these people gather at conferences designed to train them how to use social media effectively. Every week there seems to be one of these events going on somewhere. They each have their own #, of course. The tweets seem to fall into one of the following categories.

The I'm on my way!


You've all seen these. Safely tucked into their window seat on their suburban train, the sales & marketing middle manager of an SME captures the bucolic scene outside as they hurtle toward the metropolis, full of anticipation at their day ahead at the overpriced junket their CEO was sweet-talked into buying a place at six months ago by a nice young lady.

Oh dear.

The group selfie


Where three of four suits (never hipsters, of course) gurn in awkward poses with strangers under the illusion of 'networking'; the more social or digital the event, the more selfies clog up the timeline. Seriously, are these people really having the time of their lives?

 

The 'keynote'


The serial offender as far as I am concerned, where delegates accompany a blurred, poorly lit image of that session's speaker with an excitable tweet summarising the text of the current slide in the presentation, something like "Engagement is Key" or "A click is a gateway to a customer's soul". All these are basically saying are: I am here, watching this. I have justified my day out of the office. They are of no interest to anyone. Particularly when the presentation is concerned with the application of social media itself.
Recently I've noticed a variant on this. Where someone takes a picture of people doing the above - eyes down, so not actually looking at the presentation. This is either very meta or very rude! Perhaps it is just the modern equivalent of note-taking. But to me it is like watching a concert via your smartphone, even though you are there in the flesh.

 

The Don't stand so close to me


This kind of tweet I can understand. If you are exhibiting at a trade show you have to advertise your stand. Twitter is a free advertising platform so it pays to use it when you have a captive audience following a particular # and attending the event. But put some thought into how your tweet will present your brand and distinguish you from the competition. Why would anyone make a stampede to this floor space?

Feel free to issue your own ASMBO's. I would love to add to the Hall of Shame.
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