It’s Your Fault, Not Social Media’s

It always irks me a bit when posts talk about social media not delivering on “promises”, that it “disappointingly” hasn’t grown up yet and it’s not an “enterprise” function of a business because it resides in marketing. All three statements point the blame to social media and some non-existent enterprise department. All three statements are baloney. Social media hasn’t delivered nor grown up because as marketers it’s YOUR fault. Social media hasn’t been seen as more than a marketing function because marketers don’t see it as more than that.

Let’s tackle the easy one first – social media not delivering on promises. Bullshit. Total and complete bullshit. It hasn’t delivered because (a) YOU (aka the marketer) didn’t set campaign objectives and (b) YOU didn’t come up with a measurement. If you launch a campaign with no goal and then tell your executives, “Well… it did great! We got lots of positive mentions.” Ummmm… I’d think social media failed too. But, in reality, YOU failed. You failed to set expectations and you failed to sell how successful the campaign was.

Now, onto the one that requires a little more thinking. Why does social media often sit with marketing? Well, not only do marketing departments market, but they also hold the keys to the brand and ultimately what an entire company embraces, or doesn’t. As the head of marketing, not only are you responsible for external marketing, but you’re also responsible for INTERNAL marketing. Think about it. What’s your company culture? Who came up with the tagline? Who designed the materials to internally promote that tagline? (Side note: Yes, I’m well aware that simply having a tagline does not equal company culture.) Aside from the President, which Executive is in charge of crafting that message? Oh yes, no company-wide initiative would work without the support of ALL Executives, but, who’s in charge of selling them on say, social media as a company-wide business plan? YOU. The Marketer. If ALL your employees aren’t on board – and I’m not saying they have to “get it” like “we” do – then YOU have failed, not social media.

It’s tough. Back in the day, marketers only had to market. Or, as agencies like to believe, marketers sat back and drank while the agency did the heavy lifting. But, not today. Today, the role of a marketing department has evolved into so much more. Today, it’s time for marketers to grow up. Today, it’s time for more marketers to start leading and stop “just” marketing. If marketers can’t do that, then social media is never going to “grow up”.