social media

While a growing number of businesses today are starting to use social media in marketing their business, there is always a risk of putting execution before strategy. This is a real danger with social media because too many businesses realize too late that once you begin a social media initiative (such as a Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account or YouTube channel), you’ve got to refresh it with new content on a regular basis as well as monitor it for comments and spam. Otherwise, you would have been better off not doing anything.

With all of the continuing hype surrounding social media and digital marketing, there is a strong temptation to try to tune it all out and focus on building your business instead. But that would be a big mistake for you as well as your company’s future growth.

Why? Simply this: consumers have an unprecedented ability to learn more about your business than ever before as well as sharing their opinions and perspective (both favorable and negative) with the entire world. And they can do this with the simple hit of a “send” button.

Sometimes things don't go like you planned....and sometimes that's a pleasant surprise. About four years ago, I was still working at eBay. I had about 30 people on my team in marketing and every quarter we would schedule some type of team building event.

We had a lot of great team events, including the usual team building activities a lot of companies engage in (i.e. bowling, offsites) as well as what you'd expect a California company to do as well (i.e. wine tour, Segway tour) but frankly we'd run out of activities that we could get very excited about.

I’ve been working with Thomvest Ventures (a VC fund based in Silicon Valley) for about a year as a Venture Partner and it’s been a very enlightening experience. After working in the corporate world as a marketer for almost 30 years, it was “back to school” time for me to fully understand and appreciate the role the critical role VC’s play in funding social media and other start-ups.

As we enter the new year, I wanted to share some "fun facts to know and tell" as well as some personal observations on how social media is impacting marketing and businesses:

Social media and mobile devices have become a common way that people engage with each other and with brands; brand marketers need to be proactive about leveraging this accelerating trend

While I’d be the first to admit I think social media offers some incredible advantages to business, such as:

• listening to what your customer say about your brand
• enabling consumers to tell your brand’s story to others
• reducing calls to the customer support
• soliciting ideas for new or improved products
• generating excitement about your brand

as well as a host of other benefits, it will not “fix” your brand if it isn’t built on a solid strategic foundation.

I’ve been a marketer for 30 years and have lived in Silicon Valley since 2002. I’ve assumed marketers have reached the logical conclusion they are going to have to make significant changes to the way they listen and respond to their customers via the explosive growth of various social media channels, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

But this view is not universally shared by marketers…not at all. Too many marketers don’t see the need to change what they’ve traditionally done…it’s too early or too risky.