I can't comment on countries other than my own, but it's pretty clear that America is terrible at infrastructure. Roads, bridges, rails and networks - all are pushed well past their limits on a regular basis and, sadly, often left to limp along until a crisis forces a patch.
American businesses are no different. Networks, servers, customer service, research, development all take massive hits in the name of cost savings. The functions that support a business are the first things to go in a time of crisis and the last to feel the ripples of a windfall. No one bothers to upgrade the network until the old one is gasping its last breath.
You may wonder what this has to do with Social Media - after all, you (or your client) probably thinks that Social Media is lumped under Marketing and you already have a budget for that. Social Media is not a piece of your Marketing, Marketing is a piece of Social Media.
Social Media is part of your infrastructure.
The information you gather is crucial to your business. The better your information, the better your decisions are. Do you read trade journals, blogs, news, competitor's sites? If you took these away, what would be left for you to base your decisions on?
Social Media is a critical tool in your information gathering and disseminating toolbox. You can use Social Media to keep abreast of your industry and your competitors. Most importantly - you can keep in touch with your customer base. In real time. With authenticity.
Social Media is your people network - people you know and want to know and maybe could use help from. Social Media is your information server - a repository of things you need to know to make critical business decisions, and the way those decisions get out to people who need to hear them.
Social Media is your superhighway tying you to every customer, every client you've ever had - and every one of their clients and customers.
When you start building your company's Social Media infrastructure take a few basics into account: What will you talk about; Where will you talk about it; How Long can you give it; Why should anyone care? Plan for growth because you're going to have more people, more customers and more communications coming in and out...more cars on the highways, not less.
Don't wait for a crucial bridge to collapse - the time to update your Social Media infrastructure is now.
3 comments:
Great thinking Erica. The traffic/highway analogy is dead on, and we would be wise to put serious thought into the social media infrastructure we have in place before things get out of hand. Having the right tools for the tasks ahead cannot be overstated.
I'm taking this lesson to heart myself actually. I recently resurrected my personal site which has been dormant for 3 years. I've done what I can with it given the available functionality, but it's not what I need. I'm going to do a major overhaul on a new platform so that I have the right tools. After all, if I'm not using the right tools, how can I expect my clients to?
Thanks for the reminder of how important infrastructure is to what we do.
@Brandon - Great comment. I'm also revamping one of my sites and you are exactly right. If we don't use the right tools, then why should they?
One of the things that is striking in the case study of the bootleg anime leeching site is the difference in the face that different streaming hosts present when they take down bootlegs.
The most effective - Veoh especially stands out - have a message about the video not being available and then a gateway to get onto their site. Veoh includes a snapshot of a popular video clip.
MySpace proper (not MySpaceCDN) has a link, but its text only, under the not available message in front of a big red "Do Not" symbol.
Currently, the least effective are those that stream *.flv files directly, since they do not have control of the player - but at the very least, they could easily replace the bootleg content with trailer advertising with site addresses prominently displayed.
But it comes down to which companies sees that contact as an opportunity to do a raspberry at Mr. or Ms. nasty bootleg streamer, and which ones see it as a contact with a potential customer.
And of course, in the background there is quite likely to also be lurking the difference between, "our system lets us do this", and "this is what we need to do, we need a system that lets us do it".
(more ruminations at The Teaspoon Model Versus Rupert Murdoch's Pirate Support Base)
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