If You’re Not Doing a Good Job of Taking Care of Your Customers Offline, Social Media Will Just Make You Worse

Maybe you’re just pushing yourself on people. So, social media is a conversation. It’s not a place just to always talk and never listen.

So first reason it may not be working is you suck. If your business sucks, if you’re not doing a good job of taking care of your customers offline, if your service sucks, if your value sucks, social media will just make you worse.

Another reason it may not be working is you may be doing it wrong. Maybe you’re just advertising all the time. Maybe you’re just pushing yourself on people. Social media is a conversation. It’s not a place just to always talk and never listen; just like you wouldn’t do that with your friends in a normal conversation. Social media is about having conversations, interacting, and communicating with people online using similar etiquette to normal social conversations. The more social you can be using that form of media, the better.

Now, reasons why it may be working: You’re interesting. You have a great business. You take care of your customers. You love what you do. You have a great story. These are the kinds of things that make for the raw ingredients that will make you interesting on social media and could lead to engagement, conversations, and relationships that can equal referrals, sales, or, if you’re a medical client, patient education engagement — or, if you’re a food franchise like Sonic, customer engagement.

These are the kinds of things that make social media work. Here are the rules for making social media work: Don’t suck. Be interesting. Have a good story. Do a good job and be socially appropriate online, just like you would expect people to be with you offline.