September 18, 2009 Yes, my office again!, Athens, OH — I subscribe to a blog called “Outspoken Media” and it is far and away my favorite blog on Social Media. Last night, Lisa Barone wrote about her crazy Italian father and her attempts to explain social media to him. What I found fascinating about her story was that when she sent him books about what social media was all about; being transparent, listening to your customers, building relationship, etc., and he got really mad. Was he insulting her? He, as a long time business owner, had done this all his life! There’s nothing new about this stuff.
He’s right.
Two other things came to my attention this week along these lines. I heard a story this week about a situation at a hospital where the administrators were very concerned about a patient who was using social media to tell people about her surgery. Fortunately, everything went just fine — whew, good publicity. But what if things hadn’t gone just fine?
Then this morning I read another blog PRBreakfastClub that raised the question, is social media creating a landscape where businesses will no longer innovate or take risks for fear of being hammered in the social media world? My response was it sure shouldn’t.
Which brings me…finally!… to my two points today.
Point Number One: Social media will separate the businesses, organizations, institutions, etc. who are doing a good job from those who are not doing a good job. That’s my prediction, and I’m sticking with it.
From now on, when doctors and nurses treat you badly, they will have to worry about the repercussions. When an airline baggage handler tosses a $3500 Taylor Guitar and smashes it, there are repercussions. If that chicken smells just a little bit off, you might want to trash it before serving it to your customers.
A lot of people are very wary of social media and they probably should be. Our mistakes will certainly be magnified, but let’s apply a little Stephen Covey wisdom here. If we’re mostly doing a good job, if we’re building relationships and providing people with genuine service, if we are quick to admit our mistakes, our emotional bank accounts with our customers is going to be high enough to withstand our humanity. But if we suck at what we do, we have considerably fewer places to hide.
Point Number Two: Lisa’s dad is right. The things that worked a long time ago, things we already know, still apply. Sometimes I think people are making social media more difficult than it needs to be. The tools are different, the philosophy is still the same – or at least it should be. Learn the tools and get on with it already!
Now… that’s the Utopian view of the subject no doubt, and I readily admit I have Utopian tendencies! The next question is… what do you do with Trolls?
I should write about that next week, but I already promised a blog post on video editing that I haven’t delivered on yet so next week’s post will remain a mystery!
Until then, enjoy the weekend.
P.S. this video has nothing to do with anything. I just loved it and thought I’d share!
