Is <insert social media app> the wrong tool for a business?
It is hardly news to suggest that people and companies are using social media platforms to push their agenda. Many of these platforms offer paid for advertising channels and while there is a lot of discussion about the implications, both morally and commercially, about the validity of these targeted channels I would like to discuss a couple of the ‘free’ offerings.
What was its purpose?
My view is that Instagram’s original purpose was to capture and recreate the discussion around an old-style Polaroid Instamatic photograph. The square format instant picture was probably the first ‘party camera’. It could capture a moment and in a few minutes you could discuss it with your friends. Instagram took this approach to run with the growing trend of using mobile phones to capture these party/holiday shots. It quickly became the de facto app for picture sharing and discussions on mobile devices. It’s a feed-based service, i.e. it works because it wants you to see new content, it’s not really interested in showing older, stale content.
Has it been repurposed?
When I view my Instagram feed today, I don’t tend see many friends enjoying their holiday’s, or showing me the latest alternative vegetarian omelette they’ve created. Here is a quick sample;
a) 5% — Friends pictures of themselves, their pets, etc.
b) 27.5% — A “not-advert” (i.e. it’s not paid for) from a company selling their product
c) 30% — People showing their work
d) 30% — Slide deck of people declaring a series of ideas in a slide-show format
I would say it is now part LinkedIn, part Adobe Behance.
Is there a problem?
There are plenty of successful stories of companies pivoting their business once their user’s start to create their own ‘cow paths’. For me I’ve almost stopped using Instagram because of the noise. I’m happy enough with (a) & (b) but the others are frankly a complete turn off. Am I alone in that? If you are a business looking to post on Instagram the lure is obviously a large market, but the risk is that if your post smells like an advert you become associated as part of the noise, part of the problem. Ask yourself, is the post adding the enjoyment of using the platform?
What was its purpose?
It’s a similar story to Instagram (pun intended), but it was more focused on connecting your friends and family via posts, it didn’t require a photograph and it didn’t require a mobile device. Your ‘feed’ of posts could then be reviewed and you could engage with them via comments. As Facebook grew so did its feature set; separate ‘Pages’ allow you create more company/service oriented subset and ‘Groups’ for people having a common interest outside of their usual friend & family connections.
Has it been repurposed?
Facebook is all about the feed. Originally it allowed the user to have more control about what items were shown, but over the years they realized they could make more money by controlling what items appeared and when. This basically means they push content that will help retain engagement and increase advertising revenue. At the same time companies and services realized that they could utilize Pages & Groups to extend their reach without having to pay for a web site, forum, etc.
Is there a problem?
The real problem with using Pages/Groups is when a company doesn’t appreciate the concept of a feed. A feed isn’t there to provide an historical archive, or searchable content, or prioritize content — it’s about driving engagement via fresh content. For example, you create a very important post that you want your customers to see. They do, and for a few days it appears at the top of everyone’s feed for your Group. Then over the next few days and weeks the post becomes stale and new members to the Group will never see that post. Now you can pin the post, perhaps have a service to ‘poke’ the post every now and again. But the problem is that you are now using up valuable app real-estate, disrupting the feed and causing it to become noisy. I.e. driving down engagement. Ultimately the feed will drive members away and fail.
Summary
Utilizing Social Media Platforms for a business has lots of benefits, but as with any tool you need to understand what its purpose truly is otherwise you risk alienating your customers. To paraphrase the old adage, a hammer is a great tool but not every problem is a nail. Choosing a tool because it’s free might be a false economy. Choose the right tool.
