No One Follows the Dull: The Case For Good Social Media
Being loud AND boring in one direction
OK, friends – time for some blogging about why we’re blogging!
The other day I discovered that Verizon had been over-billing me for months – an extra cable box and the ‘Filipino package’, neither of which I ever requested. I thought about jumping onto Twitter to complain in public. I didn’t. Instead I started thinking about why and how we use social media, and a light bulb went off. Now I think I have some answers, and I’m ready to share.
I’ll tell you why ServInt got on Twitter in particular – because people were talking about us, and we wanted to be part of the conversation. It was an opportunity to engage with clients who were talking about us anyway – generally because they were particularly happy or particularly not happy with the service they received.
When people say nice things about us we want to be there to thank them and learn what they see us as doing right. Of course, no matter how hard we try to be perfect sometimes things go wrong and someone expresses their disappointment. We also want to be there too, to apologize when appropriate, learn from our mistakes, and maybe have a chance to set things right. And it’s another place to share our special news, our promotions, and our initiatives.
We started blogging for similar reasons – to share information and news about us in a way that spread the word. That is fine to do, but my experience with Verizon made me realize a few things about social media:
- People are more likely to lash out against a nameless, faceless corporation than against someone they know.
- If someone is pissed off about something a company does, it seems to no longer matter if 99% of the time they are happy with what that company provides.
That poses an interesting dilemma for a company like ServInt. We don’t advertise a whole lot, and rely upon satisfied customers spreading the word about us. But a lot of people think of hosting as infrastructure – something they don’t want to think about. For most, a host is only on their mind when something is wrong. And if we’re not on somebody’s mind, it means we’ve been doing something right.
So we try to get out there on Twitter, post on our blog, and participate on Facebook because we want to share what we do. But the content there isn’t compelling enough even to bring many of our loyal customers on board. I see that as a failing on our part. And one that many other companies can relate to.
It seems that too often we all use social media to talk about ourselves too much, and to many people it’s boring. That is really a bummer, because we’ve got so much cool stuff going on that we would love to talk about! We see customers grow and we see customers shrink but when we are engaged, this is a place where our team gets to help businesses find ways to grow every day! We get them the resources they need when they end up on Digg, or when they do interviews on Dr. Phil, Real Time With Bill Maher, or Entertainment Tonight. We help them scale, we learn from them and their experiences, and we aid them in their successes. Some days it seems like we’re running a Mashable incubator around here!
But we haven’t talked about that stuff enough, and as such we haven’t done a very good job of proving that we’re engaged partners, focused on the successes of our customers. Our social media outreach has been too much about us, and not enough about you.
My goal is to change that.
At the end of the day we use social media because it is another vehicle for us to be a part of a dialogue with the people we want to be talking to. That’s our customers, our partners, and anyone who relies on the Internet for their livelihood and wants a solid partner to help them succeed. Twitter, Facebook, and tools like those aren’t really all that different from any of the other tools we use to communicate. They’re like e-mail, postal mail, talking on the phone, or having a face-to-face conversation. In each case you steer clear of stuff that’s a waste of time. With most company blogs, ours included, content can be boring – no better than ‘direct mail’. People are too busy to waste their time with boring.
I feel like companies like ours are too inclined to hide our personalities behind corporate formality, and we end up doing a poor job of being a part of the conversation in a way that makes people care and lets them know who we really are – even when we have something really good to say. But what’s even worse is when companies have really compelling things they could say, but they constrain themselves from sharing when it comes to the most interesting parts of their business.
Who wants to engage with you if you’re boring?
Not me, for one. And if your clients don’t want to engage with you because you’re boring, it’s tougher to get them to tell you what you need to stop doing, what you need to start doing and what you need to continue doing. We learn from our clients and our potential clients and when they are engaged in some way it makes us better.
I am proud of what ServInt is doing every day and I want to talk about that, but I am even more proud of the customers who we help succeed every day. I want us to start generating content that helps them, that tells more of their stories, and that helps others through the experiences we share. We may be a managed hosting company, but that doesn’t mean we can’t share our real expertise, and maybe be the life of the party too.
So it’s time to evolve. At ServInt we’re good at embracing change – it’s what has made us succeed for over 15 years! We’ve gathered some good stories and insights in that time, and we’ve met some amazing partners, clients and friends. So expect to see a different side of social media from ServInt, that showcases some of that. Join us here at the ServInt Source, on Twitter, and on Facebook and be a part of the new conversation!
Christian (@mrcjdawson on Twitter)
Can’t get enough ServInt? Also consider following:
Reed Caldwell (@reedcaldwell)
Eric Morales (@krnlpanik)
and of course ServInt (@ServInt)
Photo by woodleywonderworks
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