To tweet or not to tweet - is social media a waste of time?

NICK BARLOW Marketing manager, Small Batch Coffee Company:

"For us social media wasn’t a choice, it was a necessity. We had no money and the concept of a marketing budget was ridiculous.

Social media was a way of getting your brand out there and it was free.

It’s a very easy of letting our followers know what we’re doing and we’ve also used it to find new wholesalers.

It’s like extended word of mouth, which is most people’s preferred method of communication.

Alarge part of our target demographic is a young urban crowd with vast majority using social media and it’s the most direct way of communicating with potential customers.

Also it’s more enjoyable than traditional media. You can be more irreverent and take the Mick out of yourself. It’s more relaxed and helps build a brand voice in a less corporate manner.

The flipside is it does also give a soapbox to people that want to complain, sometimes about really small things.

But you can turn these into opportunities. We once sent a box of coffee to a complainant and they ended up writing a blog about howgreat we were.

Social media isn’t a waste of time though you can waste a lot of time on it."

DAREN HOWARTH, of carbon management consultancy CLevel, natural homes developer Groundhouse and video producer 101Visions:

"The question depends on what you’re using it for and whether as another tool in your marketing box to build on.

The other side is do you see it as part of the bigger picture?

It seems there have been three big shifts in businesses and they are all interrelated.

The first is the shortage in resources – energy, materials, food, water.

The second is the roles businesses take on.

Government’s around the world are breaking down and opportunities are coming up for businesses to step up their game and try and tackle some of the bigger issues we face. Business is an incredibly powerful took for this.

The third thing is the trend of sharing stories and making connections with hundreds of thousands of people. It becomes not about a marketing tool but about authenticity and what you’re doing in the world.

The problem is when you see a trader’s van driving downthe road saying ‘like us on Facebook’ and you think why on earth would I want to do that?

On the other hand I know one business which doesn’t need a website and drives all traffic through Facebook, it is extraordinary.

So it’s a mixed bag.

I think I would turn the question round and ask ‘is business a waste of time for social media’?"

ADRIAN SWINSCOE, founder of consultancy RARE Business and youth

unemployment enterprise Building the Bridge and blogger for Forbes:

"I primarily blog, which I call my ‘personal thinking digital notepad’. It’s myparticular way of articulating thoughts in public space and I’m flattered people pay attention to what I say.

To paraphrase something a friend once said ‘nobody gave a hoot aboutmebefore they knewwhatwas insidemyhead’.

We’re in a business environment where we used to buy trust but now we have to earn trust. Sometimes we have to be generous with what we know.

Social media is a very valuable as both a personal and professional development tool and marketing tool.

But I think people who say social media is a waste of time are doing it wrong.

Business success has been driven by traditional broadcast marketing tactics. But those who apply those tactics to a social medium are getting it wrong. The clue is in the title.

If you go to a social event and all people do is they talk about themselves that gets boring very quickly.

If you do that with social media you’re probably doing it wrong. If you put the social into the media then you’re probably doing it right."

Views from the floor

Samantha Payne, owner of Cleartime Business Support, said: “It can be difficult to evidence the return on investment. I has clients who do think it is a waste of time.”

James Wright, of JHWPR said: “It’s pretty new-fangled. You’ve got to remember it took 25 years to get people on the phone. It’s a reluctance to try something new.”

Susan Beckingham, Sussex Copywriting Services, said: “I think the buzzword it likable and shareable.

I think it’s a really powerful tool if used in the right way.”

Julia Chanteray, Joy of Business, said: “For some people if your target market isn’t using it there’s no point. Also if you’re selling to high-level complex services for board member of FTSE100 companies you ain’t going to find them through Facebook or Twitter.

“For some people it will be a waste of time, it depends who you’re trying to reach.”

Andy Winter, of Brighton Housing Trust, said: “On Twitter I have just one account for me the private person and me the CEO of Brighton Housing Trust.

“In a work capacity I can be quite boring, commenting on social policy, the work of BHT and other worthy issues. I also like to include insights into my personal life, not least my love of Stoke City Football Club.

“That way people can see that I not only boring, but I am also quite sad.”

Sarah Ratty, Cielshop.co.uk, said: “I believe social media is taking over TV and it’s the way to engage with people.

“It’s about authenticity and about who you are or what you believe.

If you’re not engaged with it you’re not part of the future.”

Geoff Loader, of Southern Water, said: “In our case I advised a customer to Tweet us first thing in the morning and guaranteed it will get the problem sorted within minutes.

We have four people doing social media just for customers plus the PR team. People might think that’s a waste of time but if you use it properly its 100% not.”

Social media wins and losses

*The characters in last year’s grubby Channel 4 documentary Dogging
Tales were heavy users of Lynx deodorant.

In response to the inevitable mockery, Lynx posted a Twitter picture of crisis meeting with all directors wearing Dogging-style masks.

The clever ploy won the teenagers’ favourite antiperspirant plaudits among the Twitteratti.

*Earlier this year No 10 Downing Street posted a Twitter picture of David Cameron apparently mid phone conversation with Barack Obama about the Ukraine-Russia crisis.

Twitter users could not let the PM’s earnest self-promotion slide and quickly created mock-ups of themselves joining the conversation – with bananas instead of phones.

*Birds Eye tried to capture the social media zietgeist with Mashtags – potato snacks in the shape of @ symbols and hashtags.

Unsurprisingly the idea was ridiculed as a wildly misfiring attempt to join the bandwagon.

Analysis: so is social media a waste of time? 

Emphatically no, if the Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce’s Big Debate was anything to go by.

The debate was often more of a discussion, with many of the audience already worshipping at the altar of social media.

The majority of the more than 100 attendees used Facebook and Twitter for business.

And by the end just one audience member, a self-confessed ageingTwitter-phobe, dared raise his hand to vote that social media was indeed a waste of time.

But while most disagreed with the primary motion, there was plenty of debate from the audience on the finer points.

A reoccurring point was about authenticity and whether businesses were missing the point by appointing social media gurus to run their Twitter feeds.

Several said they had no time in their business life to mess around on Twitter and were forced to delegate responsibility – an idea social media professionals in the room saw no problem with.

According to a few straw polls most use is concentrated around Facebook for retailers and Twitter for business-tobusiness, while professional network Linked In is less popular these days.

Instagram and Tumblr were championed as great ways for visual-based like yoga classes, tattoo parlours and design agencies to engage.

One attendant went further saying images were like gold dust on social media.

The invasion of non-consumer firms onto Facebook was considered an annoyance, while the audience had no truck with the banal breakfast descriptions common on Twitter feeds.

It was clear social media has had a huge impact in how business interacts with customers and other businesses.

But businesses must get to grips with it and apply effectively rather than mindlessly bolt it on.

Some argued it was difficult to measure the exact impact of social media – but others insisted it was far easier to analyse via click-through than traditional marketing.

Regardless of its measureable effect, businesses are eagerly taking up this new tool in attempt to reach out to.