I can’t get this video out of my head. Have you watched it? It’s only 60 seconds long. I’ll wait.
OK, ready?
I love what Adobe did with this commercial. It’s funny, fast-paced, and makes a great point: do you know what your marketing is doing? After poking fun at the marketing directors who go crazy over the fictitious social media site WooWoo, Adobe stands ready to help with its analytics and tools.
I see this reaction to the latest shiny site or the concept of social media marketing frequently. A company of any size assumes that they MUST have social media presence. All sites must be represented. All sites need content. Like us, tweet us, follow us, connect with us.
And many times, the company will jump onto the social media bandwagon without answering some pretty important questions: What do we hope to achieve on our social media sites? Who are we targeting? What sorts of content do we plan to share? Do we have adequate resources to maintain our sites – posting new content, addressing posts, and keeping engagement going? What sites are great fits for our products or services?
So let’s peel apart the WooWoo onion a bit more. The directors overhear two hipsters claim that “everybody’s on WooWoo.” So they marshal all of their resources to do everything they can to corner the WooWoo slice of social media pie. As the video closes, we see and hear these same hipsters claim they’re over the site because “my mom’s on WooWoo.” But what if this company’s ideal target market is mothers of scruffy couriers?! Then all of that frenzy would have been so worth it.
And Suzie? She may be the best post writer in the universe. But is her content compelling for the intended audiences? Does it resonate with them or is it thinly veiled advertising for the company? Companies with strong social media sites that work well with their marketing and business development strategies deliver excellent content. Their content is balanced and diverse – informative, interesting, fun, provocative, original – you get the point.
So I encourage you to thoughtfully approach your social media efforts. Walk before you WooWoo – plan carefully and execute intelligently – build engaging content and have fun without investing too heavily.