As I look around the PR landscape today, many executives are looking at social media like a young girl in love with the high school's star quarterback. All they see is a positive and in typical fashion decide that they need to be on board that band wagon and need to do it yesterday. Often, they do not take the time to figure out how to best use the technology to meet current and long term needs or even how it fits into current and future marketing and branding strategies.
Social Media can also be compared to an all you can eat buffet. Someone sees a sign in Las Vegas that says $9.95 all you can eat buffet and thinks, "wow that is great, I need to do that." So they plunk down $10 and head to the table and of course load up on tons of stuff and usually end up feeling bloated, not very satisfied and usually seeing that the plate is still have full. Then to top it all off, they are usually hungry again in a few hours. Social Media is certainly an interesting phenomena but like anything else in business, it needs to be approached with purpose and with a clear goal regarding how it will be used to achieve corporate goals. Social Media does not exist to serve its own ends.
Social Media also presents risks regarding the potential for information leaks. While you need always be on guard for intellectual espionage, Social Media presents another concern where you may have employees who are proud of their accomplishments and take to the blogsphere or Facebook to brag about what they do. Pride is a human weakness and as well all know, pride preceds the fall. Employees should be instructed to treat any communication with outside parties the same regardless of whether they are meeting with friends for drinks or writing on a blog.
For my own two cents, I believe an approved blog is the best Social Media vehicle today. It allows for a disciplined and measured interaction with the world at large. It also allows the most secure and disciplined means of reaching a target audience and offers the benefits of the two way channel of communication we want with Social Media. Twitter is a close second when done properly but Facebook to me, still needs to prove its value as a business tool for social media.
More good news from the Sox yesterday. Nick Green hit a great walk off home run on Father's Day and ended what was a really fascinating and gut-wrenching day for both teams. I felt sorry to Tim Wakefield as the bullpen really did him no favors, but then again that's nothing new. But Green's homer was just a shot and only left a question of fair vs. foul. Oh and once again, Julio Lugo on the bench = Red Sox don't lose!
Well still no sign of summer or warm weather. The weather forecaster's say later this year and all I can say is that we shall see! Funny Foxborough has already put its water restrictions in place for the summer. I hope they are right!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment