Passion Trumps Position

social media at bayonet pointAre you trying to embrace social media at bayonet point?

Yes, you should absolutely broaden your social media efforts, and get more people from your company involved, and in more places. But, you should not do that at the expense of the secret ingredient of social media – Passion.

Why do features and benefits-laden messages not work in social media? Because people typically aren’t passionate about features.

Why do people friend companies on Facebook? Because they are passionate about that brand.

Why do people that you don’t know take the time to retweet your content on Twitter? Because they’re passionate about what you have to say.

Sure, social media bloggers/consultants like me, Mack Collier, Danny Brown, Dave Fleet, Jacob Morgan, Sonny Gill, Olivier Blanchard, Jason Falls and many more pick up the occasional client or speaking gig from our blogs, but the blog writing itself doesn’t pay for itself. Far from it. We spend the time writing because we have a passion for it.

You can’t buy passion. And you can’t fake it.

In their zeal to get involved in social media, many companies (and even some of my clients), have adopted a policy of assigning social media responsibilities. You are a Vice President. Thus, you know what you’re doing, and we need to share that thought leadership with the world. Consequently, you will be blogging, and we expect you to have a new post every two weeks.

Does that sound familiar?

You can’t force social media adoption, because the more you associate social media with just another job task that you don’t really have time for, the less passion your content will contain, and the less successful it will be.

Passion trumps position in social media. If you have mid-level or junior staff that really want to create content on behalf of your company, you’re better off giving them the keys and helping them create more engaging and insightful content, as opposed to adhering to an edict that the senior team has to be the mouthpiece.

The content will have passion. The content creators will be happy that you gave them the opportunity to communicate on behalf of the company. And the members of your team that would rather not get involved in social media can stay on the sidelines, making them happier, too.

At the organization level, we’re almost to the point where social media engagement is mandatory. At the individual level, we aren’t, and I’m not sure we’ll ever get there, or should.

How about you? Do you have people gritting their teeth about social media in your company?

(photo by floodllama)

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  • "You can’t buy passion. And you can’t fake it."

    THANK YOU Jay! This is why ghost blogging & tweeting do not work. Why don't people get that? If a CEO or janitor is passionate about the company they work for it will come out in their writing. If not, you can tell that too ("buy our new innovative product, it's the best thing since we leveraged our last thought-leading, groundbreaking product...no, really, trust us, it is. In fact recently a VP said it was, but we can't give you his name.")

    And an agency can't fake it passion for a company that is passionless [Walmarting Across America] because there are just too many disconnects with tone, content, context and community when someone tries to fake it.

    This is also why I don't blog everyday. I can only write when passion strikes. I am a blogger, not a journalist.

    BTW, do you mind if I steal that line?! ;-)

    Beth Harte
    Community Manager, MarketingProfs
    @marketingprofs
  • You can ghost write SEO content or something like that, but you can't ghost write something that is supposed to come from the heart and soul, and that's social media.

    To that end, I certainly wish you DID blog every day, because your stuff is incredibly valuable and thoughtful. You're lucky that you can create and consume and manipulate content as part of your job, and then do some other writing on the side when you're passionate. Best of both worlds, I'd say.
  • Ahhh ... very timely ... I was part of a similar discussion on LinkedIn some days ago .... we labeled this: 'faux fuzzies'; the act of an impassionate individual messaging their brand thru social media. Customers feel it when the message is disingenuous; heck so too does our family members; fellow workers, neighbors, etc.

    Can you subcontract passion? Hmmm .... I can think of one profession where that's possible .... but nothing else comes to mind. ;)
  • Dan Levine
    Jason, thoughtful post, as always. For me it's a tough middle ground. No, you don't want folks engaging at bayonet point, but you do need your company to engage. So I think you're right in that you need to find the person(s) in your company that has/have the passion, interest, energy, and commitment to it and give them the support they need to engage successfully. I'm a huge advocate of engaging your employees "where they are" and helping them help your company where their passion lies. More often than not you've got the talent in-house. You just need to coax it out and give those folks the opportunity to shine. Great stuff, Jason -- thanks!
  • Thanks Dan. I always appreciate you taking the time to comment. I agree. Social media isn't for everyone - especially blogging. You have to diagnose who in your organization wants to be involved in what capacity, and allow those desires to flourish. If you have NOBODY in your company that wants to do it, well then you have a bigger cultural problem, I'd say.
  • Yes now a days the social media become everybody's media. Anybody can reach without any trouble. Winner will be the one who always make use of social media for promotion of his service.
  • Passion can't be faked. However, passion can be suppressed.

    In a lot of companies creating a social media program (or even exploring the possibility of having one) are seen as herculean tasks. Roadblocks, politics and the status quo usually stand in the way.

    Passion can overcome these obstacles but only if you know how to effectively navigate the inner workings of an agency or company.
    .-= Stuart Foster´s last blog ..Cooking Up Some Patience =-.
  • Stuart - Right you are. It's so much easier to say no than to say yes. Especially when you see more and more social media brandjackings in social media. It just takes one person in an organization to submarine the whole affair.
  • Jason,
    You hit the nail on the head in stressing the importance of being passionate about social media. There are times when I try to 'fabricate' passion just so I might involve myself in a topic or thread of conversation-- only to find it doesn't garner results because I am simply being one-sided. Being passionate is about sharing information. Beth Harte said it best when she called those who take and don't give back 'social media leeches.' I have to say in stumbling across gems like this, it gives me more reason to just love what I'm doing as a social media manager. I'm always learning.
    .-= Tim Otis´s last blog ..The Twitter death: what if it just died? =-.
  • Tim - Thanks so much for the kind words and nice comment. You're lucky that your job IS social media. It's a lot easier to make the time that way, right?
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