I remember when I first started working in social media marketing back in 2009. I was fresh out of university, filled with grand ideas of brilliantly hilarious content, engaging posts, and viral videos. Fast forward 12 years later and I sit here an empty husk of a marketer with strained, bloodshot eyes, and jaded to the world having trudged the social media swamp. From perverts to nightmare customers, here are some highlights of some of the things I’ve seen online and the lessons they have taught me along the way. This is my story. I hope you learn from it.
1. Sex Doesn’t Sell
I recall running a campaign featuring female and male models selling the exact same financial product dressed modestly and striking professional poses. The campaign was overperforming expectations, specifically the ads with female models. The pages were growing exponentially which made me look like a hero to my client — until the other shoe dropped. A week or so into the campaign and our page demographics were starting to look like a ‘fiesta de chorizo’.
Two weeks into the campaign and we started receiving numerous comments on posts about the female models’ physical appearance. Not such a great look and definitely not the kind of social engagement you want. We eventually solved the demographics issue by targeting our ads differently to properly reflect the audience we wanted, but it was a learning moment for me:
Your pages should not just have people who are interested in your product, they should have people you’d be proud to have in your community. Your brand is based on your values and you should create an online community that respects these values if you want it to truly shine in the long term.
2. The Ultimate Karen
I used to sweat more when a customer of a client complained on Twitter or Instagram and they had 10K followers vs. another customer who complained and they were only followed by their mom and a handful of bots.
One time, a customer with 12,000+ Twitter followers complained about having to wait in line for an extra few minutes during peak hours and the entire social media department went on high alert mode. That same day another customer with 15 followers had an actual serious issue and nobody broke a sweat. Although we handled and responded to both with equal amounts of diligence, speed, and attention, at the time, we were more concerned with how the customer with more followers would react. This taught me another valuable lesson:
Just because your customer is small, doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them. Complaints are a learning opportunity for your business, not just a chance for a social media ‘win’. A complaint, no matter where it’s from, will help you identify gaps in your service so you can fix a process and improve your overall customer experience.
3. Goldfish, the Lot of You
People are exposed to thousands of ads, hundreds of baby pictures, dozens of political rants by aunts, and at least five conspiracy theories from three different uncles a day. No wonder our attention span is decreasing every generation. Some posts are a little more complex and require a bit of reading on behalf of the customer to check eligibility or other important details. You can put as much info as you want, but most people won’t take the time to read all of it, click on your site, or call a hotline. It taught me to:
Simplify your sales process. If you have an ad on Facebook, try to close that sale or secure that lead on Facebook. Your potential customer graced you with a few spare seconds so don’t squander it by sending them to another landing page or website or asking them to call you. Put a salesperson on that page and as soon as that client is hooked, reel them in right away.
Despite the hopeless imagery in the introduction, I have not lost an ounce of passion for the industry. Spending so much time on social media uncovers a lot about human nature, the way we consume content, and how it influences our behavior. Yes, you see some bad things along the way, but you also see a lot of good in people too. More importantly, you can be that driver of good in the world. Let your brand page reflect your ideals and create a community of people who feel the same way.
We should also remember that social media isn’t a true reflection of life. That same principle should be reflected in your marketing too: Don’t put all your marketing eggs in social media alone — because just like life, there is a lot more to it than what we see online.