Why is there such a mixed reaction to Social Media in business? Some of the worlds largest brands have welcomed it with open arms such as Starbucks, using Twitter to generate new ideas. Whilst, smaller companies are totally ignoring the power of this medium, why?
Well it does require some dedication and passion. That’s not to say that companies that do not use Social Media aren’t passionate about what they do, just that they may not communicate that passion well. All companies suffer from communication issues internally to some degree and this often reflects in their outward communication to customers too.
Lack of understanding of the technology. When something is a “web thing”, it often does not get regarded as a serious business tool. Sometimes seen as a fad, Social Media has technophobes running in all directions. In fact what is happening in this space online has been happening off-line in other ways for years. The Internet based tools just aid and speed up the process and in some ways have refined and improved it by allowing better feedback from customers.
Over estimating the resource required. Managing Social Media for your business does not mean you need to spend all day on Twitter or continually posting on Facebook. In fact if you apply the same time management principles you do to your email inbox you should only need to check in a couple of times a day for 10 minutes or so. You can even have multiple people managing the same accounts.
Fear of the unknown has always been a commanding factor when it comes to influencing peoples actions. But it still amazes me that business executives willing to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in a new offline project find the Internet so difficult to comprehend.
