Social Media: Quality Over Quantity

So often I've come across a big brand on social media and discovered that they have some obscene amount of accounts attached to their name. I'll take some time and look through them and find that, more times than not, their mess of pages is unorganized, under-resourced and lacking the appropriate effort necessary for success. I always wonder what the point is of having so many touch points with their customers if none of them are any good.

Many companies feel it necessary to have a general page, a customer service page, a page for a specific line, a page for company employees and whatever else they can think of. These pages usually come in the form of a half-dozen Twitter pages, a Facebook page (or two), a couple Instagram feeds, a Pinterest page, a couple LinkedIn pages and possibly a Google+ page or two. I'm assuming that the thought is, "We need to get to EVERY potential customer, on every site, and address any possible concern, all the time." At last check, 73% of online adults use social media sites, and that number is larger when you consider teens on social media sites. This means there are hundreds of millions of people, or customers, online and these brands feel they need to reach every one of them.

Social media marketing is a lot like traditional marketing in the fact that you can't reach every person every time. You simply need to be positioned in the places where your audience spends their time, and be available when they need you or your services. So many times companies think they HAVE to be everywhere. Speaking as a consumer, that just makes it more of a hassle.

One example is Xbox Live. They are an online service offered by Microsoft that allows you to play video games online with people across the world and it crashes... often. One day I was having issues and I decided to check Twitter to see if other people were reporting similar issues. When I couldn't find anything I decided to tweet at Xbox Live to ask if they were having issues, or if it was somehow my problem. When I searched I found a regular XboxLive handle, a Xbox Live Support handle and a Xbox Live forum handle, among others. Now, I wasn't confused with which to use, but I did wonder why they had three accounts. Why would people tweet to Xbox Live if it wasn't support based? Do they really get enough non-support traffic to justify having split accounts? What was the forum handle for? Was that for people to talk about the brand? Why wouldn't that be part of the main handle? It made little sense to me as both a marketer and a consumer.

I was talking to a friend recently who manages all of the social media accounts for an international brand. They hired her to take their social media from nothing to something. She told me that when she came on board they started with a single Facebook page and Twitter account. For the first year all they did was manage the hell out of those two accounts. They posted all different content and touched on all of the various segments of their business. After a while they began to notice dramatic trends in the engagement on their page, for example, every photo that they posted received massive amounts of traffic. This clued them in to the fact that photo-centric social networks were worthwhile for their brand. In response to this information they started Instagram and Pinterest pages, which have been very successful.

Something else they learned was that posts on a specific part of their business, in this case weddings, were very popular. They had received numerous questions and interactions regarding their wedding services. Since this section of their business was also a strategic priority for their marketing they decided to start a blog focused on it that answered the questions they were getting; it has since become a huge part of their online platform.

The moral of the story is to focus on the quality of your pages rather than the quantity. The goal is not to get as widespread as possible as fast as possible. The goal is to provide valuable content to your audience so they will connect with you and purchase from you. Start with the basics - Facebook and Twitter - and then let your audience let you know what areas they'd like to get more information on, and on what types of social networks they'd be most inclined to interact with you. If you can find a reason to separate your audience into multiple accounts and pages then do so AFTER you have a reason to believe you audience will appreciate it.

The Perfect Solution: The Web World's White Whale

So often in life we're faced with a problem that has several possible solutions. We then have to analyze our potential paths and determine which one achieves most of the desired outcomes. In some rare cases you get to find one solution that solves everything and reignites your faith in God and all of humanity. Unfortunately this doesn't exist in the web world.

When creating, redoing, or just refreshing your website, there will be hundreds of minor problems/choices that you'll have to address along the way. Everything from functionality to design will need to be sorted out. This makes the task extremely daunting and can slow a web project down to a slow crawl in no time. So often everyone obsesses with finding the "perfect" solution: "There must be a way to get everything right the first time." Well, from my experience, when it comes to websites, there is no way to get everything right on the first try. 

This can be frustrating for the more "detail-oriented" among us, while in actuality embracing the concept that "it won't be right the first time" is much better for the overall health of your website. Accepting that you are going to make your best guess up front allows for infinitely more freedom with the creation of the website. It allows you to try some things that you might otherwise have skipped; those "crazy" ideas that push the risk/reward line. In addition to the potential of something wonderful happening, you can launch sooner with a product that is better than what you have today. As the famous quote goes, "Don't let best get in the way of better."

The other, more important reason that stressing over every detail at once is a waste of your time is that no matter what you come up with, you're wrong. How you think your users want to interact with you is more than likely not how they actually want to interact with you. The wonderful thing about digital marketing is that it is built upon the "guess and check" method. When you start a Pay-Per-Click campaign you cast your net wide, find out what works, and narrow it from there. When you start a social media campaign you try all kinds of different types of posts and a wide range of content. After a while you see what your audience responds to and you work that more into your content calendar. 

Well, this is how your website works. You'll find that, no matter how "perfect" it is, there will still be unexpected problems and adjustments. You'll find that your customers use your website in ways you never could have imagined. You'll notice that some customers don't use search bars and some ONLY use search bars. You'll find that some customers like to wander through your website and like clicking through your navigation because it puts the content into context. Contrarily there will be those that want to find their content as quick as possible. 

The moral of the story is that fretting over each and every web decision is about as useful as a wedding cake at a bowling alley. Put your best guess out there and let your customers tell you what works. If you're stuck between a few ideas then try them all. Use A/B testing combined with Google Analytics to tell you which format worked the best and change your site accordingly. Figuring out which font to use for your links shouldn't wake you up at night. There is no such thing as the perfect solution.