If you’re not going to check your sites, then don’t bother with social media

My friend Dave Howlett once suggested that people wouldn’t have pet peeves if they stopped feeding their pets. (I’m paraphrasing.) Dave is right; in a perfect world, I wouldn’t let whatever business bother me.

Well, I’m still working on being perfect (ha!), but I do need to get something off my chest. Here goes: Increasingly, I’m coming across Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, blogs and other social media presence points that have been made by organizations and then seemingly abandoned.*

Just imagine a customer or prospect being interested sufficient to post a comment to your blog or Facebook page, and then being ignored. This is the equivalent of never returning phone calls or answering emails.

So what’s the answer? Do not make a social media site if you don’t have the resources to maintain it and to watch it. Simple, right?

When I work with my clients, I try to help them to know the conversational aspect of social media – the give and take, the exchange of thoughts, to be sure the social aspect. Unfortunately, too many people still view social media as a broadcast mechanism, a way to shove content out into the world. This approach just does not work.

Thanks, I feel better.

(*UPDATE: I haven’t even addressed the scourge of spam left on blog posts and FB pages because admins don’t even know it’s there. Sigh.)