On the socialfresh blog, Gia Lyons had a great post earlier this week on how “The Turtle Ultimately Wins The Race”.
Her post was about how social media success takes time and how a “constant and steady” approach is needed to create a strong long-term presence.
Unfortunately, this is advice many companies don’t want to hear. In their minds, social media is a fast-moving market in which there is an urgency to climb on the bandwagon – even if it often means doing so without strategic and tactical plans to provide a roadmap of where to go and how to get there.
Instead, too many companies are looking for instant-gratification. They want to see activity, results, followers, fans, comments, leads and sales literally overnight. In their minds, once a social media program is launched, success should quickly follow.
One of the reasons for this misguided expectations is the focus on ROI.
As much as companies are enthusiastic about social media and cognizant of its benefits, it is new corporate activity that requires an investment in people, time and money. Applying traditional metrics, companies feel compelled to measure this investment to assess whether their social media efforts are working and producing tangible results.
This approach is akin to trying to put a round peg in a square hole. As much as you try to force it in, it’s not going to work.
Instead, companies have to recognize social media is a different beast with different rules and behaviours. Creating communities, engaging with customers and establishing a strong social media presence requires time and effort.
I often tell companies that it takes about three to six months to really assess their social medida efforts. This doesn’t mean that social media activity shouldn’t be measured along the way. In fact, it makes complete sense to regularly measure so strategic or tactical tweaks or adjustments can be made.
In other words, patience is a virtue when it comes to social media. Sadly, many companies are so anxious to see results that patience and pragmatism gets thrown out the window.
