Few channels have caused as much of a stir in the marketing community as the birth and impending adolescence of social media. Companies that just two years ago disdained Facebook as a teenagers’ fad are now rushing to fill their own fan pages. Executives who thought tweets were for twits have begun to share their every thought with the world (not that the world is any richer for knowing what you had for breakfast or that you’re standing in line at the dry cleaners).
Of course, the inevitable experts have cropped up to tell everyone how to make the most of these new channels, and as is typically the case, most of them disagree with one another. Some insist that unique content is the only way to go, others recommend cross-posting anything that strikes your corporate fancy, many tell you to be chatty and cute, a few insist that anything short of businesslike is deadly. Each insists that theirs is the secret to success, and each is probably right to some degree.
I don’t have any esoteric social-media magic to promote, but I’ve quickly become convinced that the real secret to success in these channels is a time-honored strategic tool: the schedule.
That’s right. In this era of instantaneous tweets and HootSuites, a tool that’s nearly as old as civilization itself may be what you need to get that proverbial leg up on the competition.
“How can that be?” I can hear the new-media authorities growl. “Social media is supposed to be creative… and free… and happy… and playful… and devoid of all those businessy things. Schedules are old-school. They’re old-fashioned. They’re the tools of those anal-retentive grumps, not the innovative free-thinkers who will guide us to transformative new spheres of existence.”
Sorry to burst their pretty bubbles, but it’s absolutely true. In today’s increasingly chaotic marketplaces — whether for products or content — some good-old-fashioned discipline can provide a powerful advantage.
Here’s why. Most companies and organizations that have flocked to social media aren’t approaching these channels in anything that even resembles an organized manner. Oh, they’re enthusiastic and eager to play in this growing realm, but they’re just not sure how to do business there. So they start tweeting constantly, posting Facebook statuses by the hour, and throw comments into ten LinkedIn discussions every day.
But that’s only for the first week. By week two, they’re tweeting two or three times a day, making a daily post to Facebook, and spending just a few minutes scrolling through what seems to be a host of worthless LinkedIn conversations. Soon they’re tweeting only when they remember to, posting to Facebook as an occasional afterthought, and logging into their LinkedIn account only when a name they don’t recognize shows up as a colleague who wants to connect.