How To Succeed in Social Media as a Business

How do you suc­ceed in social media as a business?

The answer is prob­ably not what most organ­isa­tions think. Most organ­isa­tions think that social media is all about vir­al suc­cess — or nothing.

Many believe social media suc­cess hinges on being bru­tally authen­t­ic and churn­ing out vir­al con­tent at a break­neck pace.

These beliefs are the reas­on why so many busi­nesses fail in social media. And this is because these beliefs are wrong.

They should be using the industry rule instead.

Here we go:

The Wisdom of Cheshire Puss

Consider the fol­low­ing quote:

“Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather tim­idly, as she did not at all know wheth­er it would like the name: how­ever, it only grinned a little wider. ‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where — ’ said Alice.

‘Then it does­n’t mat­ter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

’ — so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explan­a­tion.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland /​ Through the Looking-Glass

A cheap ana­lys­is would sug­gest that it’s “essen­tial to set your goal before choos­ing a strategy.”

But we all knew that already.

However, on a closer inspec­tion, we can real­ise that choos­ing the right strategy is about tak­ing stock of both the situ­ation and any poten­tial out­comes with a clear mind:

If you don’t want (or can­’t handle) all aspects of your chosen path, pick a dif­fer­ent goal or adjust your ambi­tions accordingly.

The Moonshot Fallacy

We all know the old saying:

“Aim for the stars and maybe you’ll reach the stars.”

This is not true for organ­isa­tions on social media. The simple math of moon­shot prob­ab­il­it­ies will crush most initiatives.

Yes, there are out­liers, case stud­ies demon­strat­ing how a few brands become glob­al sen­sa­tions overnight. But brands should­n’t be focus­ing on the few that made big splashes in social media (see also sur­viv­or­ship bias). Brands should study those that have tried and failed, rather than repeat­ing their mistakes.

In most organ­isa­tions, how­ever, ambi­tious social media “moon­shots” are applauded. They’re seen as brave, cre­at­ive, and busi­ness for­ward. Thinking big has always warmed the hearts and minds of top executives.

This is a social media moon­shot fal­lacy. Organisations would be bet­ter off tak­ing on social media chal­lenges in small, man­age­able chunks at a time. 

The Social Media Reality Check

I won’t tell a busi­ness with gran­di­ose social media goals to scrap their plans out­right. I will, how­ever, offer them a social media real­ity check before we embark on any jour­ney together.

As a busi­ness in social media, there are reas­ons to be con­cerned about any ambi­tious endeavours.

The Lack of Social Media Confidence

While top exec­ut­ives seem to “think big” when it comes to social media, the people tasked with mak­ing it hap­pen typ­ic­ally dis­play an oppos­ing attitude:

“Success in social media seems almost impossible. Why even bother?”

This atti­tude can also be found amongst top exec­ut­ives who have tried and failed too many times.

To an extent, it’s wise to be some­what dis­cour­aged about what it takes to “become a vir­al sen­sa­tion” as a reg­u­lar busi­ness. Competing for atten­tion in the nev­er-end­ing stream of influ­en­cer con­tent is a truly daunt­ing task.

However, turn­ing and going in the oppos­ite dir­ec­tion by toss­ing any poten­tial digit­al advant­ages out of the con­fer­ence room win­dow is noth­ing short of insane.

Social media remains a sig­ni­fic­ant oppor­tun­ity for most organ­isa­tions. A lack of social media con­fid­ence is only counterproductive.

Instead of focus­ing on how to break the inter­net, you should focus on what exactly your organ­isa­tion could gain without break­ing the bank.

How To Succeed in Social Media

Relationships and trust don’t scale the same way inform­a­tion tech­no­logy does. Our men­tal band­width is evolving at a much slower pace than human innovation.

You can­not win 1,000,000 hearts and minds with social media con­tent that can­’t win a single one.

It might seem coun­ter­in­tu­it­ive, but you must start with just one per­son. If you can deeply con­vince just one indi­vidu­al, chances are that that per­son can assist you in con­vin­cing one or two oth­er like-minded peers. And then they can do the same.

This is ground zero for all forms of social scaling.

Social media algorithms func­tion in the same way. They are run­ning the num­bers for vari­ous forms of mind vir­uses. If the psy­cho­lo­gic­al infec­tion rate on a small pop­u­la­tion shows prom­ise, the algorithm will iter­at­ively scale upwards in a momentum spiral.

This is why going small at first is the cor­rect strategy.
You build up to big suc­cess by stack­ing small, man­age­able suc­cesses over time.

The Industry Rule of Social Media and Digital Communications

In the last 20 years, fol­low­ing the rise of the Silicon Valley men­tal­ity, all brands are some­how sup­posed to have a vis­ion of “revolu­tion­ising everything” and “mak­ing the world a sig­ni­fic­antly bet­ter place.”

Although it may be hyper­bole, I don’t mind organ­isa­tions hav­ing altru­ist­ic vis­ions for their future impact on soci­ety as a whole. But as an every­day prac­ti­tion­er, gran­di­ose vis­ions won’t put food on my table.

There are many upsides of down­scal­ing the ini­tial ambi­tions of any social media endeavour:

So, if your organ­isa­tion should­n’t be try­ing to dom­in­ate the world’s news­feeds by tomor­row morn­ing, then what?

Well, the ques­tion is easy to answer:

In the short- to mid-term, all you have to do is isol­ate a few poten­tial digit­al advant­ages where you, with man­age­able effort and invest­ment, can become num­ber one amongst your closest com­pet­it­ors.

That’s it.
That’s the industry rule of social media and digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions.

In most cases, your closest com­pet­it­ors face the same basic struggles as you. They have a sim­il­ar amount of resources at their dis­pos­al. Don’t try to con­quer the gigant­ic sphere of social media; instead, focus on beat­ing your com­pet­it­ors in one digit­al area after another. 

Chances are that you’ll find that this isn’t just extremely doable. You might also find that it’s pretty easy. 

THANKS FOR READING.
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