Cosmedia Consulting - Online Marketing Company

An article by Esther Vargas (in Portuguese) lists the worst defects of journalists. Many – if not all – are very true, and can be applied to brands and their usage of social media.

Listed below is a slightly tweaked list of the shortcomings that apply to some brands using social media – especially those companies who are less open to self-criticism.

What are they?

• Believing that the brand alone has the answers to problems or issues.
• Thinking that their brand is infallible.
• Forgetting to understand that one of their main purposes is to inform and engage with consumers for their own business objectives and not necessarily to just beat the competition.
• Building strategies on trends alone. Social media strategy should stand the duration of the company’s existence, and should be in some shape or form applicable in many years to come.
• Disguising the truth.
• Not listening to the local and global conversations related to their brands, competitors, and industry verticals – and then learning from this observation.
• Having no real interest or passion for the social media medium, and doing it purely because they feel they ‘have to’.
• Having too much ego – and having this come across in the social media efforts.
• Failing to think about their readers or audience, and not recognising that social media is a service to same.
• Conforming to the ordinary – the norm – instead of looking for new ways to stand out.
• Limiting the building of internal skill sets.
• Resisting any proposed change.
• Lacking any form of solidarity with their target market.
• Lacking any creativity and initiative.
• Unwilling to investigate or to confuse tactic with ‘strategy’ and ‘research’.

What do you think?

by Gino Cosme