As our mothers used to say to us as kids, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all!" Man o' man, ain't that the truth.
Recently I went on a bit of a Twitter hiatus or, shall I say, #twitterhiatus? It was a self-inflicted purgatory to see what it'd be like to block out the stream of noise that Twitter can be. Now, recognize that if Twitter (or Facebook or LinkedIn) has simply become a worthless noise machine, it's really your own fault, not the tool's. Why? Because YOU choose who you want to follow, not Twitter. Maybe if all this social media stuff isn't doing it for you, perhaps you don't have interesting friends. Strike that. You don't have friends who share interesting Tweets or Facebook updates. You know that guy or gal who's always got the best jokes or the most keen insights or fascinating factoid? Yeah, well why the hell am I getting updates like "Bathing my cat" from them?
Working with companies on their social media strategies can be equally challenging. As you can imagine, nearly every firm out there is feeling behind the curve when it comes to using social media. The problem with social media -- as opposed to web design or other marketing campaigns -- is that there's no barrier to entry from a financial standpoint. Yup, that's right. I'm saying that its "free-ness" is a problem. When stuff costs money to execute, companies spend time thinking about how the want to invest that money. They rightfully question what they want to achieve. They request and require ROI.
But social media execution is practically free so companies have little reason not to simply execute. As a result, all of sudden you've got organizations publicly sharing information, tidbits, and snarky commentary without any strategic idea of what they're trying to accomplish. I bet if it cost $20,000 to get up and running, you wouldn't see these types of behaviors.
Social media's magic isn't in its execution of tools and outposts and pages. Social media, despite its "free" price-tag, is serious stuff with serious and potentially wonderful returns. Every company considering jumping into the realm of distributed content, market conversation, and real-time vetting -- all fancy descriptors of social media -- need to channel the voices of their mothers: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all." Organizations need to take considerable time to ask those basic and fundamental questions: What do we have to say? What do we want -- and are prepared -- to hear? What is our voice and perspective? How will we handle controversy and criticism? What are our returns? Why are we doing this?
I guarantee there are fruitful answers to all of these questions, but without asking them, you're more likely to add to the noise rather than become a signal that people gravitate towards.