There’s a diner in my town with a huge “Follow us on Facebook” sign in the window. Yet if you go to their Facebook page, there’s nothing worth following there. They haven’t updated it in months. It’s a social media ghost town.
Nashville marketer Laura Click recently posed the question, “Is your company creating a social media ghost town?” Many brands and businesses, both big and small, are doing just that. They jumped on the social media bandwagon and have since lost interest. They’ve resorted to the bare minimum or they’ve let the practice slip altogether. Oddly enough, many continue to promote their social media presence, even when there’s nothing but tumbleweeds there.
In the excitement of setting up a Facebook page for your brand or business, it’s easy to forget the commitment that is required to make it worthwhile. Social media may be free to set up, but it takes investment in time and attention to do it well. Brands lose interest because they run out of content, get distracted by other priorities, or expect immediate unrealistic results. The result is a negative social media experience, which is worse than no social media experience at all.
Cultivating a community is not about the platform for that community. It’s about how you behave everywhere the consumer can interact with your brand, whether online or offline. Social media tools can facilitate those interactions, but only if efforts are made to do it well. “Friend us on Facebook” is in danger of becoming as laughable as “your call is very important to us” when you’re waiting on hold for 15 minutes.
True community building is a natural extension of a brand. Consumers can tell when it’s window-dressing. Particularly when the windows haven’t been cleaned in a while.
Laura Click says
January 3, 2011 at 6:38 amHi Tom – I’m so flattered you made a cartoon out of my post! This is a fantastic way to illustrate the phenomenon of abandoned social media efforts.
You’re right – social media is way more than simply having a Facebook page or Twitter account. It’s about engaging customers in a meaningful way. Otherwise, it’s simply white noise.
Well done!
Catherine says
January 3, 2011 at 8:27 amWhat a great illustration! Social media is like any other social networking or relationship, wheather personal face-to-face or virtually… It takes time and dedication to build. The value of any relationship, in my view, is directly related to the time we are willing to invest in it, and to grow it, and it can be very rewarding if done properly. If you don’t meant it, don’t do it!
Nemcy says
January 3, 2011 at 7:16 pmHi Mr. Fishburne,
I’ve emailed you before on how your cartoons and article/blog really “hits”. Once again, your latest post did it again. Can’t help but share it in my blog 😉 Hopefully it will be a reminder to those that needs to be reminded! 😉
Thanks for all the tips and wonderful cartoons, Sir!
Happy 2011 ahead ^_^
Jeorge Peter says
January 6, 2011 at 5:02 pmWhat would a haunted facebook page would look like? Customers would just say take them out from there!
April Wilson says
January 31, 2012 at 5:39 pmI totally agree. One of the things I tell my clients is that it’s WORSE to have a dusty cobwebbed social media presence than not to have one at all.
There are a lot of tools that make it easy to manage and maintain a daily presence. I talked about my favorite three about a month ago here:
digitalanalytics101.com/2012/01/the-lazy-persons-guide-to-being-a-social-media-rock-star/