Why Social Media Fails for Many Companies and Organizations

Social media is all the rage among companies and organizations. But when you stop to examine the return on investment and effectiveness of many social media efforts, it’s often embarrassingly ineffective and trivial at the expense of more important potential ways to communicate to key audiences.

It’s one thing to have Twitter and Facebook accounts; it’s quite another to really know how to use them … and the spectrum of other social media tools … to achieve results.

Online social media works best when an organization invests the effort in developing a comprehensive and focused communications strategy. Consistent and effective messages that connect with an organization’s audiences requires the work of skilled, accomplished people who know the online and communications environments.

Postings on Twitter and Facebook are largely meaningless when they lack value and meaning for audiences. Most so-called social media “gurus” I’ve met are amateurs and lack authentic, established skills or accomplishments.

Effective social media that creates valuable results for companies and organizations is not the purview for beginners who have no track record.

This digital era – as I have written in “Making News in the Digital Era,” my latest book – is unquestionably the most exciting period of my career as a journalist and strategic communication adviser. But as an early adapter of online and blog technology, I believe it’s only going to work for us on a sustained basis when we stop long enough to embrace the core elements of effective strategic communication to drive any social media or online communications initiatives.

Strategic planning, storytelling and clear messages have always worked to point us forward. They will do so in the digital era, too. Today’s online social media is just another in a long line of tactical communication delivery tools that stretches back to storytelling around the tribal fire, epic poems, books, postal mail, the fax machine and e-mail. In fact, think back to when e-mail first hit the big time. Pundits predicted world-shaking possibilities. Nobody predicted spam.

Brooke Gladstone of the “On the Media” program on National Public Radio says, “Journalists are taught to talk and write in human terms. Tell me a story.” It’s been that way forever, and it’s no different in countries, cultures and communities around the world.

We share an infinite variety of stories about the human experience, and often the best stories are repeated over and over. Storytelling is an opportunity that’s often missed by a PR and communications players who seemingly obsessed with traditional press releases, a perceived easiness of social media and predictable promotions.

Storytelling cuts through competitive clutter far more effectively and with greater influence than anything else in an organization’s marketing or PR arsenal. It gets to the heart of what’s special about your organization and what you have to say.

My colleague Anne Bell at PBS NewsHour says it best: “A great story has legs that in today’s world can travel many miles per hour.” Anne is correct. Consider how a great story can sprint the globe today in a nanosecond.

We are living in a world where new and not-so-new tools collide, merge and morph, all with the intent to better connect with audiences. To do that, we must use all these advanced technologies to do something ancient: tell stories that people want to hear and will be motivated to share.

Related posts:

1. Is Social Media a Mile Wide, Inch Deep?
2. Rules of Social Media
3. Should Traditional Media Fear Its Social Sibling?
4. Social Media Reality Check
5. How Much Can Social Media Be Trusted?

Category: Featured, Reputation management