Are you eschewing the basics to focus on social media?
At two recent conferences where I spoke (Online Marketing Summit and Email Evolutions) there were several discussions about the confluence of email and social media.
Thinking about email and social media concurrently is healthy – and appropriate. Both are best used as customer retention and brand loyalty tactics more so than for first-time acquisition. And ultimately, good email and good social media are both mechanisms for authentic, relevant conversations between the brand and is customers.
But I have mixed feelings about the buzz around social media, a growing cacophony to which email marketers are not immune.
Sure, social media is sexy and new(ish) and all the rage among the mainstream business press. But you should not be worrying much about social media until you and your company have the old school stuff dialed in 100%.
There are WAY too many companies out there sending irrelevant, annoying, batch-and-blast emails of increasing desperation and decreasing effectiveness. There are WAY too many companies out there that still take 48 hours to respond to an email requesting help or support. Are you suggesting that those companies should now monitor social media conversations and respond in real-time? Puhleeze.
Before you go crazy drinking the social media punch, take a hard look at your company and the customer experience you’re providing at retail, on the phone, via email, and at all other touch points.
Let’s commit to successful blocking and tackling before we fully embrace the social media high wire act, okay?
(photo by hellosputnik)
Reading: Don’t Put the Social Media Cart Before the Horse http://ow.ly/nI1
It’s scary how much sense this post makes, Jason. I think you could add companies that do batch-and-blast “press releases” into this category as well. They aren’t interested in listening, nor really engaging in conversations with customers. More likely they are in it to push marketing content, which, as we all know will not be effective.
Great points Jason. I think a lot of companies do not realize that email and social media are a start and stop proposition. It needs to be nurtured or you alienate your customers.
And as far as social media being sexy, a lot of people want it but don’t understand it, which makes a lot of things dangerous.
@jaybaer – So so so true. As you know, we see this EMAIL BLAST mentality far to often.
However, to play devil’s advocate:
You wrote, “Let’s commit to successful blocking and tackling before we fully embrace the social media high wire act, okay?”
I think that it is critical that organizations begin the learning process of how to effectively engage in the social media conversation. Some choose to jump right in…flop around a bit. Others take things slower. Not sure which approach is necessarily better.
What do you think?
dj
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DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto
@djwaldow
DJ Waldow’s last blog post..Data: Jump on it!
[...] Baer talked about the danger of putting the cart before the horse – he cautions us to focus on the basics before jumping into the “sexy and new(ish)” rage [...]
Google Shared: Don’t Put the Social Media Cart Before the Horse: Are you eschewing the basics to f.. http://bit.ly/AwMbq
RT @andismit: Google Shared: Don’t Put the Social Media Cart Before the Horse: Are you eschewing the basics to f.. http://bit.ly/AwMbq
Don’t put the social media cart before the horse.
http://tinyurl.com/b3z3eb
Don’t put the social horse before the cart – great (short) post by @jaybaer http://bit.ly/ztvip