Why is Social Media a Full Time Job?

While it’s heartening to see more and more companies and business houses realize the value of social media as an important marketing tool; the fact that they are still not ready to allot enough resources to harness its full potential. This reduces the whole thing to a joke. Most of the companies prefer to shovel the responsibility of handling social media on their existing marketing team in addition to their current responsibilities. Regular marketing guys are not only sorely inexperienced and inept at handling social media they probably don’t even have enough time.

Social media takes an awful amount of time and energy before any success can be achieved. And those who are not too well versed with it tend to underestimate it. Just running a blog takes about 5-7 hours a week and when you throw in twitter and facebook, the meter starts running at top speed. You can well imagine how many hours running promotions and integrated videos into your social media initiatives would demand.

Even if the responsibility of handling social media is given to a PR person good with communicating and writing, or to someone who understands the brand well, it’s the amount of time required to keep facebook and twitter updated that kills the cat. The job of a PR person includes maintaining community relations, event planning, employee relation, advertising, government relation and not to miss something known as media relation. With social media thrown into the cauldron as well, who has the time and energy to make it work?

So any company interested in exploiting social media to its maximum advantage has two options. It can either create a complete team or at least a new position exclusively for social media or hire a social media firm who has already proven its mettle in the field. They just need to remember that putting a few hours a week into social media and expecting success is recipe of disaster. Social media may be free but that does not make it any easier. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it, in terms of both time and effort. I am sorry to say but there simply aren’t any short cuts.

Consider for a moment what results do you expect from posting once a week on your facebook page and then taking another week to reply to comments and queries. How do you expect to cut mustard by posting occasionally to twitter or linking it with your facebook account? The bottom line is you need a new full time position if you expect social media to deliver serious results it is capable of delivering.

The coming few years will see companies hiring people who will be solely responsible for handling social media. But those who like to take the bull by its horns understand its importance today and pay someone to do social media for them.

When a person’s sole focus is on social media he can keep accounts updated sometime several times in a day. Queries, comments and complains are handled immediately and disposed off speedily. Not only does he have time and energy to come up with creative promotional ideas, other duties do not get neglected in the process. This person can put together a plan keeping in view the goals of the company and keep an eye on changing trends in social media to mould the campaigns accordingly.

The payback is certain!

Social Media That Matters—for Families and Disasters

Forget the incessant cacophony about social-media use in business for one nanosecond. This post is about family, friends and loved ones. Find a way today to get them all connected to a social-media network of some type, because when disaster or terrorist attacks strike …

SOCIAL MEDIA MATTERS

Here’s why.

Several years ago my oldest son Kane worked in Galway, Ireland for a summer on a UN humanitarian law school project. When it was finished, he and a friend decided to visit Istanbul for a couple days on the way home. Being the ever-encouraging and positive father I am, I said,

“No. Are you nuts? You’re an American. Stay away. Did you look at a map? Did you happen to notice that Istanbul is not really on the way home from Ireland?”

Istanbul is not really on the way home

Being the ever-obedient son Kane is, he went anyway—with much panache I might add.

That same weekend as I was traveling with my youngest son Zack up the Great Smoky Mountains Expressway (a 17-mile trip up, then 18 miles down the mountain) with no access to any phones, stores or gas stations—a completely uncivilized ( heavenly) driving environment, I heard a beep coming from my son’s phone in the passenger seat.

“What’s that?”

I asked that question because a year earlier there was no cell service going over the mountain—a dead area.

“My Facebook phone alert.”

Facebook? In this isolated stretch of mountainous highway? Was there no peace to be had anywhere on earth anymore?

Zack looked at his phone.

“Dad, Kane says to tell you not to worry (he actually said “not to freak out” but Zack had edited it), he’s okay.”

Now, usually when someone says “not to worry, I’m okay,” that means there is a lot to worry about that you didn’t know you should have been worrying about until they told you not to worry about it.

My youngest son is a perceptive communicator and translator. He anticipated my reaction and quickly texted his oldest brother,

“Dad wants to know what the %$^$%& you mean.”

“There was a terrorist attack—an explosion, a bomb—near our hotel. Killed a lot of people. The hotel management was rounding up all Americans staying there and securing us in a room—for protection I guess.”

A MAALOX MOMENT

This is what is typically referred to as a “Maalox Moment.” 

A “Maalox moment” is that involuntary tightening of the essence of your entire being that occurs right before an impending disaster—like when your car is out of control and you know you’re going to crash. Or, you look out the window and see an F-5 tornado headed your way. The list could go on and on. These type of events all invoke a “Maalox Moment” response.  I’m sure it’s an intelligently designed, evolutionary, genetic trait. One that is instantly triggered, when your son texts you …

… “Don’t worry. I’m okay.”

We texted back and forth going up the Great Smoky Mountains Expressway until I felt he was safe.

Now think about that. In the middle of nowhere, instantaneous communications from the Smoky Mountains to and from Istanbul—surreal and unimaginable, even the year before.

From the Smoky Mountains to Istanbul

I turned the radio on. The national news networks had no coverage of it. In fact, it was three to four hours later before it was reported in the United States.

ANOTHER MAALOX MOMENT

Then there was another beep on Zack’s phone..

“Dad, Kane says to tell you he’s alright—again. There was another explosion.”

The evil and efficient minds of most terrorists know they maximize death, destruction and psychological impact if there are two blasts—one to attract attention, then another one, usually bigger and several minutes later, to kill the emergency responders. Emergency responders—the brave-hearted people who respond to dangerous situations all over the world every day.

Long story short, the hotel staff was great, took care of the boys, and they were on a plane out of the country two tense days later.

FAST-FORWARD: MARCH 11, 2011 – EARTHQUAKE

My youngest son Zack is now overseas teaching English.

He’s been there two years.

Zack Kayser (If you can't guess.. he's the red Samurai)

In Handa (半田市, Handa-shi) in the 愛知県, Aichi-ken prefecture, Japan, which is south of Tokyo.

About 6 a.m. on March 11, a  Friday morning, I started getting beeps, pings, e-mails, Facebook messages and Tweets about an 8.9-magnitude Japanese earthquake. It startled me awake.

“Had I heard from Zack? Was he okay?”

I hadn’t—either about the earthquake or from Zack.

I tried to call, but couldn’t get through. The phone system didn’t work. The underseas communications cables had been cut by the tsunami and the telecommunications network had been severely damaged. I e-mailed him. Nothing.  No response. Nothing to do but wait.This went on for hours.

No response to anything.

Silence.  Then …

FACEBOOK’ED AGAIN

I get a Facebook message from Zack.

He’d been on the train to work. It shook severely and was scary, but he was okay. He said there were fires, quakes and tsunami warnings—things you don’t experience every day in Cincinnati.

Zack went on, through Facebook instant message, to describe what was happening, including the aftershocks every 20 minutes that were between magnitudes 4.0 to 5.0. Yesterday (Sunday) he’d had a 6.3 aftershock that picked his bed up, so he fled to the uncertain safety of the bathtub to ride it out. The bathtub is now his best non-human friend. Not so much as a kid though, if memory and olfactory senses recall correctly.

Then last night, Sunday (Monday morning for him), we video-Skyped. I saw his face, his smile, heard his voice—could almost reach out and touch him and I knew he really was alright.

When nothing else worked, social media and social-media networks did. How? I don’t know. Don’t care either. It just did.

Do yourself, your family, friends and loved ones a big favor. Connect them to a social-media network.

Use Facebook. Facebook has a Disaster Relief page.

Use Twitter. Twitter has been especially proactive during the Japan earthquake, posting a page of  tools and tips on how to use Twitter to get information and to communicate broadly to family, friends and others.

Use Skype.

Use Google, though not a social network per se, it has a great  Crisis Response Page with tools and critical information. It also displays real-time updates from Twitter via their real-time search function.

Use any social network you can that will help you stay connected during emergencies. It really is …

SOCIAL MEDIA THAT MATTERS

In disasters and terrorist attacks, I have learned this lesson twice: When nothing else works, social media does.

COURTESY – Steve Kayser

Happy Birthday

Wishing a person who changed my life for good, a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I wish all success, happiness and prosperity.

Enjoy the Day!