Some social media companies show little engagement themselves
Posted by Matt Hayden on Tuesday, April 12, 2016
One idea that is often repeated in relation to social media marketing is the importance of engagement. It's definitely a bit of a buzzword. Of course, they do tend to be overused. But not in this case. Engagement really is crucial. The whole point of using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and the like is to start up and maintain conversations -- to engage with others.
Unfortunately there's a widespread belief that you can employ social media marketing and avoid that particular element! It's seen as a chore by many. But in my opinion that's the fun part. And pretty much everything else comes from it.
It's understandable so many people who are new to this method of online marketing would think that way. But what I find odd and a bit disappointing is that you often see very little engagement on the blogs and social media profiles of companies that offer social media marketing services!
Now, at this point I'm a bit guilty of this myself. This is a very new site and blog. I'm still gathering momentum. And I've only just added the Disqus commenting system to this blog -- excellent in many respects, BTW.
So, it's easy to let this particular aspect lag a bit, particularly if you are in the early stages. But I've actually seen some big and established companies with blogs that have next to no comments on them, for example.
The content that they contain is certainly useful. So why so little engagement? I suspect that this is because they have't been reaching out and commenting on other people's blogs. That's by far the best way to get some happening on your own, after all.
Now it may just be that they are really busy doing this kind of stuff for other people. I suspect that's what's happening in some cases.
But I also think it's due to the fact that many social media marketing and management packages are being offered by companies that started out offering web design, hosting, app development and the like. These are very tech-oriented "geek"-rich fields after all. And they started selling these new services because many of their clients requested them. Also there are all those new customers to be found, given the widespread interest in using Facebook and similar sites for marketing.
But the whole irony of this is that social media is not a technical process. It's a human one! It's far from instant, too. You must create, build up and maintain quality relationships with others on social networks. It's only after you've been doing that for some time that you see benefits.
Now, if you are outsourcing this process to companies who aren't really into communicating with people then you'll probably be disappointed in the long run. That's why I think you should be really careful about who you choose to do this for you if you decide you don't have time to do it yourself.
Unfortunately there's a widespread belief that you can employ social media marketing and avoid that particular element! It's seen as a chore by many. But in my opinion that's the fun part. And pretty much everything else comes from it.
It's understandable so many people who are new to this method of online marketing would think that way. But what I find odd and a bit disappointing is that you often see very little engagement on the blogs and social media profiles of companies that offer social media marketing services!
Now, at this point I'm a bit guilty of this myself. This is a very new site and blog. I'm still gathering momentum. And I've only just added the Disqus commenting system to this blog -- excellent in many respects, BTW.
So, it's easy to let this particular aspect lag a bit, particularly if you are in the early stages. But I've actually seen some big and established companies with blogs that have next to no comments on them, for example.
The content that they contain is certainly useful. So why so little engagement? I suspect that this is because they have't been reaching out and commenting on other people's blogs. That's by far the best way to get some happening on your own, after all.
Now it may just be that they are really busy doing this kind of stuff for other people. I suspect that's what's happening in some cases.
But I also think it's due to the fact that many social media marketing and management packages are being offered by companies that started out offering web design, hosting, app development and the like. These are very tech-oriented "geek"-rich fields after all. And they started selling these new services because many of their clients requested them. Also there are all those new customers to be found, given the widespread interest in using Facebook and similar sites for marketing.
But the whole irony of this is that social media is not a technical process. It's a human one! It's far from instant, too. You must create, build up and maintain quality relationships with others on social networks. It's only after you've been doing that for some time that you see benefits.
Now, if you are outsourcing this process to companies who aren't really into communicating with people then you'll probably be disappointed in the long run. That's why I think you should be really careful about who you choose to do this for you if you decide you don't have time to do it yourself.
