07 Sep How Companies Will Fail In Social Media In The Future

Just as easily as your Facebook followers can opt-in and become a fan they can also opt-out. They can either do so by choosing or going through profile settings or they can completely checkout mentally when they see something on their news feed.

Since social media success is such a lofty metric, marketers are constantly turning to follower and fan numbers as a way to gauge success. While numbers are important initially, once you have all those fans you need to do something with them.

I think this is the point where are a lot of companies are right now. They drank the juice and started using social media. The problem is they are sending messages that are entirely focused on themselves and it’s hard to blame them. It’s natural to want to do this.

I recently read an article titled “Why Most Brands Will Fail at Social Media” and even though it’s a little sarcastic, it makes some great points. The truth is that your competitors are using social media to reach shared consumers, not just yours. The numbers are increasing monthly as more and more companies are turning to corporate blogs and other social media platforms. Simply being on these platforms is not enough anymore. The article makes an interesting prediction that in the next 3 years, consumers will become overwhelmed with social media consumption and the process of gaining a new fan will become a lot harder than it currently is.

The question now becomes one of diversity. How will you be different than your competitors? I don’t think simply putting a static message on an interactive channel will do it. There has to be some kind of interaction to create any sort of lasting power. Trust me, your competitors are going to figure out ways to create this interaction and if you fall behind, you may lose opportunities that will never come back.