Six Reasons Social Media Doesn’t Work

Because many companies lose money doing social media. The way most arrangements are set up, 100% of the risk is on the company and not the company performing the social media marketing. You are only seeing this from the point of view of the SMO service provider, so it's easy to say all businesses should do SMO and their logic is somehow faulty if they don't. But if you assumed some or part of the risk it would be a different story. For example, how many of you would be interested in doing a social media revenue share with us?

Chalk me up to the expert you hate for suggesting investment is not necessarily the best word in that ROI acronym. I am more aligned with Beth Kanter and others, for instance, who echo my reasoning: http://www.bethkanter.org/ror/

My latest conversation: Bloggers Unite Today Around Food

OK - I'm noticing that on some people's posts, it's pulling in their most recent blog post. Does livefyre now integrate with CommentLuv???

Love this post, Gini! I've spoke to three different groups this month, one of which was a very hostile audience against social media. One in particular (who was older and kept calling it "the tweeters") was so frustrated about it all and just wanted it to go away. He wondered why they even needed to worry about it in the first place. Your point about it not being relevant until AFTER they retire is spot on.

Someone in the subsequent session I spoke to I think said it best - we like to be in charge, but we can't always be in control. For folks in leadership positions, that can often be a scary proposition. I think fear is the underlying reason many don't move forward - fear of lack of control, fear it will be a waste of time, fear it won't impact their bottom line (or will have a negative impact).

It's one thing to make a conscious, educated decision not to engage in social media or the web, it's another to make up a bunch of rubbish and stick your head in the sand hoping it will go away.

Ah, Fear Of Change. I work in domain names, and currently, everyone is up in arms over the coming new gTLDs (i.e. dot anything vs dot com). I have heard so many arguments from people who don't want them: we don't need them, they're different, people won't learn how to use them, they won't affect the value of a dot com.... and it all boils down to Fear Of Change. It happens everywhere. Next week, can you talk about how to get people over the Fear Of Change?

Sigh. I've heard all these before. But, I have this new one to add that I also get from my too scared/unengaged/needtobeincontrolexecs: my company is geographically dispersed and I am only responsible for the pr/promotion in a certain geographic area. Other franchises (for lack of a better term) are responsible for promo in their areas. So, they reason that promoting through social media promotes outside our geographic area. Umm...so does our Web site. And that Chicago Tribune article that was posted online - also outside our area. That seems to fall on deaf ears. My frustration with this is I guess tempered by your experience in dealing with this all the time. We're not the only ones!

I can't tell you how often I've been confronted with a mixture of all the 6 reasons you mention, Gini!

After having read the whole conversation here and many posts from you and others on that topic, I agree with Des Walsh (who points it out so rightly in his post

http://www.customerthink.com/comment/reply/269704 ): social media resistant bosses or decision makers get even more angry - in my view no matter what age - when you point to research or best practices that show the rapid growth, usage and success companies have by doing business within social networks, the social web, social media or 'the web', how industry leaders, specialists, customers, clients and journalists both young and old are profiting from the tools and platforms within the social web. As Des sums up: "So it's not about the facts - it's about emotion".

In my view it all comes down to - fear: fear of having missed out a development that startet 20 years ago, fear of having to catch up with something they neglected all those years, fear of the changes that result from diving into or continuously having to care about 'that social media thing'. What they feel or already know is that social media - if done right - changes everything. And CHANGE is a management issue, which means it's their job to start the change from the top, and maybe in many different areas of the company, not just in the marketing or public relations department.

We have to face this decision makers' basic attitude of fear and find good points and reasons to make them accept or convince them that change is nothing to be afraid of but opens up many many new opportunities - as you, Gini, are constantly pointing out!

Hi just thought I would leave another comment just to boost the number count. Plus I need to ensure I leave more comments than bdorman264