Social media making you sick?

This is not social media. This is stupid. If you're saying/doing/tweeting things like this, then you deserve the trolling noise you're sure to have, and - just for breaking the internet's heart - your nether regions should be infested with a thousand little tsotsi politicians.

Why is it that every brand flapped forward to the frontline of social media and created a fan page and/or a Twitter account anyway? Sure I'd have to be an absolute twit to contend the value of this platform outright, but for every single brand? Seriously? Kitchen towel is your friend in the kitchen. Let us know if you keep yours in a cool, dry place? Shan't. Because I'm too busy smashing my device into pieces for allowing 'suggested posts' like this into my life

What happened to our focus on the studiously researched science of placement? Just like you wouldn't put a funeral parlour in a shopping mall, why be compelled to create a social media presence for your brand of kitchen towel, hmm? For a promotion-period, sure... But for everyday frivolity?

Just because 51% of active Twitter users follow companies, brands or products on social networks, doesn't mean you have a captive-receptacle ready to blithely bait whatever you tweet them. They can and eventually will choose what they are going to stick around for.

But take note, because there are those getting it right! Kraft Macaroni & Cheese is one such example. This Facebook page has 1,492,201 likes (and growing). Why? Because macaroni and cheese. And because you know you love it. But not everyone has a sleeper hit like this - the equivalent of winning the social media lottery doesn't just come to the lazy.

The lazy social media-ists

They're everywhere. You can recognise them by their savvy tricks to lure you in or baffle your brain with hashtags. They hope for miraculous social media reach and activity with notoriously catatonic updates ending with a really lame question. Or... they believe their brand should prove its prowess with a tweet about #worldclass #synergy for #effective #results that drive #consumer #awareness for #global #brandgrowth across a #commonthread that #leveragesUSP for #clientlove. If your audience really wanted to engage with content that made absolutely no sense, they would just watch the eNCA.

Personalities wanted

Owning a company and representing its brand shouldn't compel you to become a drudging, commonplace and wearisome bore. People like and want to connect with those very human aspects and characteristics of your brand.

All of social media is a stage and you are a leading player on it. Build your character (from many facets) and infuse feelings that people can actually connect with. Sure, that 2:43am drunken and misspelt rant about your boss's saggy bum won't deliver the golden parachute (so make sure your spelling is correct, at least), but a little of the heart behind the heat sheds light on whom, why and what builds the brand - on a daily basis.

Tweeting for the team

Consider a forum for additional voices that are recognised as part of it. So you are not @CocaCola, but you are @CocaCola_RuthD_CFO_Europe, or @Shoprite_Jenni_TalentScout. Granted, it's no Ipsos Measurement or a theory that Millward Brown may list, but these personality sentiments will return exponential growth in followers because of the fly-on-the-wall nuggets of information being shared from behind the scenes. Interesting = more talkability. But really interesting; not how-many-squares-on-our-kitchen-towel? interesting.

Get to grips with this forum and watch it work for you.

If you are tweeting as role that is behind the brand:

• Write as you - but responsibly
  
• If it's boring, bin it
  
• Steer new conversations
  
• Evoke responses that add value
  
• Prompt thoughtful, engaging, ongoing discussions from your own voice
  
• Retweet your colleagues' tweets
  
• Make the circle bigger

And then, once you've got this down pat, remember: just one small cap is enough.

I knew you were trouble

click to enlarge

The moral of the story can't be based on morals because none of us have many left, and the ones that do wouldn't agree on the mix anyway. Case in point: I was troubled (again) recently as I came across this app ad, promoted to my feed:

Just because a guy likes a little Wizard of Oz in his playlist and was (just once) called a sexual predator by the French Rugby team, doesn't mean he wants your creepy app that does this, okay?

Show me a gay man who wants an app to help him sneak pictures of men to share with the friends he doesn't even have, and I'll show you a guy who belongs in the same category of people who choose to be fans of kitchen towel or cooking oil on Facebook. We call this 'category' an asylum, which is where we're all headed if we don't watch the cerebral value of the content we a) issue, b) engage with or c) all of the above.

Remember: Social media should ultimately make us smarter in how we can access more information and from being better connected than ever before.

Get connected with me @DylanBalkind.

Thanks for reading!