I know, coming from the e-commerce strategist that probably seems weird.  After all, people in my “industry” tend to sell social media to anyone and anything willing to spend a dollar with them on a social media campaign.  But coming to you as the independent e-commerce strategist that I am, I am telling you that more than likely, you do NOT need a social media presence. At least, not a significant one.  Now, by all means, if it fits you, go for it.  If it benefits your customers in some way, great.   If you can inform your customers or potential customers by sharing timely information, then you should definitely take advantage of the proper social media tools to do so. A Twitter account is probably something you should have for your business, regardless of size.  A Facebook page for your company is probably not as important for many businesses.  If it means taking time away from other important things, then it should be prioritized rather low on the list of things you need to do today.  

The example that set me off tonight and forced me to sit down at my Vaio and crank out this article was the commercial for Fancy Feast cat food.  I remember the company only because I was so annoyed by the horribleness of the spot that I needed to know who to blame for such a social media debacle.  The commercial was a very uninspired and not very entertaining spot showing a guy about to get married, and gets a message to run home, perhaps because his cat is missing.  The guy breaks out the cat food, and voila, the cat appears with a pendant around its neck that the guy grabs and heads out the door.   There was no conversation, no real story, and it would have blended in as just another terrible TV commercial if not for the words displayed on the screen at teh conclusion of the commercial:  ”See how it ends on YouTube” or something to that effect.   See how it ends?  Seriously?  I’m ticked off that I had to see how it started.   That was 30 seconds of my life wasted on a poorly written cat food commercial.  You want me to spend more time looking up a video to see more that stuff?  No thank you.   And I’m pretty sure you are a cat food company.  Let me say that again – YOU MAKE CAT FOOD.  Do you really need people to be your “friend” on Facebook, or read your Tweets? Or go out of their way to see your horrible TV commercials?

People in marketing for companies need to remember something that they all live when they are sitting at home on the couch.  Nobody wants to watch commercials unless it is during the Super Bowl, and even then, you better bring your ‘A’ game and have something funny and memorable.  Nobody is sitting around the water cooler the next day talking about the cat food commercial, I can assure you.  And if I am around the water cooler, and someone brings it up, and adds in that they went to YouTube to see the rest of the commercial, odds are that person doesn’t have too many “friends” on Facebook to share their story with. 

So now that I’ve vented a bit about the unnecessary cat food social media effort, I’ll try to bring this back in to a level that will help small and large businesses alike.    People don’t want to watch commercials.  They really don’t want to have anything to do with your company UNLESS IT BENEFITS THEM DIRECTLY.   Give me a coupon, give me a free gift, give me some valuable information, heck… just make me laugh.  Going to YouTube to watch a commercial that I didn’t want to be forced to watch in regular television isn’t going to happen.  

I think if people keep that in mind for their business they can be very successful with social media.  And know that perhaps the correct answer is that you don’t need social media after all.   If you can’t provide value to an intended audience, then don’t bother wasting your time with it.  If you have coupons or gifts or good information or even a funny joke, then sure, send a Tweet with it.  Post it on Facebook.  Make a video that may go viral.  But don’t do it just because some marketing firm told you that you need to engage with your customers.  And definitely don’t do it because everyone else is doing it.  That creates bubbles, and bubbles pop.   Those that do things right will benefit, and those that do things wrong will benefit only the marketing firm that talked them into signing that social media contract in the first place. 

And if you still want to know more about what I think, and want to see how this article ends, then just visit YouTube and search for something until you find something I probably forgot to even upload anyway.   Just kidding, don’t waste your time.  And that goes for running your business as well.

This is also my first attempt at embedding a powerpoint presentation in WordPress using the Google Doc Embedder plugin, so bear with me while I configure it properly, and very soon I will have my presentation available to you to view directly below.  Only registered users on our site can download it though, so if you don’t want to register with us, you can still view the presentation.  At some point soon, I’ll put some audio to the presentation so that you can know exactly what I was saying to go along with the slides.