Let he who is without social media sin skip this one (but that’s not most of us)

iMedia Connection had a good article last week by Chris Aarons and Geoff Nelson of Ivy Worldwide, in which they outline the eight deadly sins of social media.

1. First up, thou shall not equate going viral with success. They point out the failure of the OfficeMax “elfyourself” campaign as an example of one that had high participation, but didn’t produce sales or brand recognition - people who knew the campaign didn’t associate it with OfficeMax. Now, there may be times when you don’t want your viral campaign associated with your brand, but introducing a new product that you absolute don’t want connected to your old brand in any way, shape, or form (e.g., your brand is associated with geriatrics, and your audience is hipsters) is the only one I can think of. And that no sales thing… Maybe okay if you’re in the long-slog, enterprise B2B world, where it’s impossible to tie any one event or activity to a sale, but in a consumer-retail environment? Gulp.

   The point that Chris and Geoff make is that there should be some point to your wanting to go viral - i.e., it should be based on a strategy. Just going viral isn’t a substitute for that.

2. You’re no longer in control. And if you think you are, you’re mistaken. So stop trying to control things, and don’t even bother to pretend that your press releases are blog entries, or that your data sheets are Facebook content. What you really want out of social media is for someone else to be doing at least some of the talking for you. Sure, you can prime the pump - IBM, of all companies, has had some good stuff on YouTube - but, at the end of the day, if you think that you’ll look good by cutting and pasting content from your website into the comment section of the blog of someone writing about your industry, think again.
3. If I’ve got the next sin right, it’s lose the idea that your customers are dying to jump in and do your social media work for you. Unless you’re ab-fab certain that they’ll be motivated by the very thought of making a fun video on your behalf, lose the campaign idea about the big contest to get your customers to do so unless you’re willing to make it worth their while. (They cite an example from Heinz that offered $57K for a winning commercial about ketchup. Who’d of thunk it? Money talks.)
4. The next one intersects with a real sin - don’t let yourself become the “john” by paying bloggers to prostitute themselves by writing about your products. Although they don’t say so, I will: this doesn’t mean you can’t slip a free product or whatever into the hands of someone who might be interested in writing about you. But it does mean that you need to take the risk that they’ll say something negative. Once you pay someone to say nice things about you, and folks find out, no one will trust you or the paid endorser.
5. Don’t treat social media as if it’s the exclusive domain of PR - this is way too limiting. Sure, PR needs to play a central role, but make sure you also include product development, service and support, research… This is excellent advice - and advice that I give clients all the time. If you’re in a techie field, the last thing you want is some flak from your PR firm making cut and paste comments out in the blogosphere. What you do want is your experts - those who have something to say that goes beyond boilerplate, and identifies them and your company as someone whose voice matters - out there making good points in online forums.
6. Paid advertising on social media sites is a bad idea, since it won’t yield the “social media ’superfecta’” that Chris and Geoff define. That’s where your social media campaign results in “sales results, Google results, third-party endorsements, and user-generated contented by real people carrying the message in unison to other forums, venues and, ultimately, to more consumers.” Paying good money to plunk your message in an ad box won’t work and will, in fact, increase campaign costs and, thus, the ROI threshold for the campaign.
7. Sin number seven strikes me as manifold. It’s bad if you don’t have a plan, don’t just look to the big dog blogs, and - my favorite (and one I’ve posted on before): don’t start blogging unless your willing to make a “long-term commitment.” (Do I hear an ‘amen’?)
8. Don’t expect social media to go it alone - it has to be integrated into your overall marketing program. “Social media is a strategic amplifier for your campaign, not the entire campaign.”

While I don’t find most of these sins mortal in nature, they’re definitely in the capital-v-Venial range, and should be avoided if you don’t want to endanger your marketing soul.

Anyway, while I think I’ve done the article justice, if you want to hear it from the horses’ mouth, the full article is definitely worth a look.

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