Social media success has a price

Bankole Adedeji

Great achievements go beyond being talented or taking advantage of opportunities. It draws heavily on sustained efforts. How do you measure great efforts in pursuit of excellence?

Over the years, psychologists around the world have had spirited debates on how talent amounts to great achievement. It’s one thing to be talented, but it’s another to be talented and do nothing. How best can you prepare? Keep practising!

Down through history, great people and organisations have always been preparing themselves for the future — by practising.

The great composer, Wolfgang Mozart, was outstanding not only because he started composing songs at an early age, but also because he kept on practising his craft for more than 10 years. In fact, Mozart’s earliest works are not as great as the latter ones. Why? Because then, he was preparing for the future.

Bill Gates’ autobiography reveals that he practised programming at the Information Sciences Inc. for an average of eight hours a day, seven days a week. Gates said, “It was my obsession. I skipped athletics. I went up there at night.” By the time he dropped out of Harvard, his nonstop seven consecutive years of practice had paid off.

I typed what you are reading via Microsoft Word and, perhaps, you are also reading it via a Microsoft operating system.

The argument that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice comes up all the time. Before you can see the social media platform work for you, you need to put in effort. I’m not saying you need to put in 10,000 hours, but you must make an effort — quality effort.

In my little years of practice in the digital media, I have met top C-Level executives, great brand managers and blue-chip companies complain bitterly about not getting the desired results they crave via social media. Here are my findings:

Entry drowsiness

Companies are excited coming on the social media. I’ve seen CEOs get so excited for joining the social media platform. Unfortunately, for some of them, the excitement only lasts for a few days. Your reason(s) for joining the social media network must be defined before creating the platforms. So many go through this stage and just decide to remain like that.

It is for this reason companies say “we are social too. We have social media plug-ins on our website.” By the time experts run several tests on their platforms, one readily finds out ‘social cobwebs’ because the social media platform has been left unattended to for a long time.

Social zombies

Zombies are living dead. They are alive but not conscious of their environment. It’s the same with some organisation’s social media platforms. They are just there, but not conscious of their environment. Their customers are taking to social media registering their like and dislikes, but since they are social zombies, they are not conscious. The social media platform is the best way to relate with your customers and create a relationship with them. Since you have an existing social platform, why act like a zombie?

Consistency is the secret of any social media success. Keep your social media platform buzzing. What makes your organisation a social giant? It’s the ability to keep doing what it’s doing socially. To attain a desired level of success, consider these:

Post relevant information

Post relevant information about your business. Make sure any change you make internally reflects on your social platforms. These include a change in customer care number, email address etc.

Develop a social voice

What your company says on social media platforms matters. Consistency in reinforcing what you’ve said earlier is the secret. Though organisations find it difficult to create content, I advise you seek an expert.

Engage your customers

What traditional media do is to create a one-way conversation and that is throwing messages in consumers’ faces. Today’s consumers will do the same to you — they will throw it back at you. Consumers have changed. They want to have a meaningful conversation with you. So, where are you? Social media platforms afford you the luxury of doing this. Posting promotional messages don’t engage customers.

Your social media success has a price, though — your quality hours. The quality time you put will definitely get you dividends.