The current mantra in business, being led into battle by newly minted social media experts, is to get on the social media bandwagon as quickly as possible. Get on Twitter, get a Facebook page, it doesn’t matter if you have a clue how to use them just get on them. The idea being that the sooner you can start talking with your current, and potential, consumer base the better.

For companies that already have a record of being responsive to customers this whole social media exercise is only a natural extension of something they are already doing. Companies however that treat customers like they are idiots or are just a necessary evil of making money no social media action is going to save your ass.

Mia at Marketing Mystic puts it this way

Over the years, I’ve been asked many times by business owners, marketers, product  managers whether they should use social media and here’s the brutal truth for everyone who’s still grappling with the same question: When your product doesn’t work and your customer support sucks, no amount of “tweeting” is going to save your business. Period.

She goes on to add that if you have shitty customer service no-one is going to give a damn about your Facebook page. Using AT&T as an example she says

AT&T is a great example of a company who uses Twitter to spew uni-directional messages instead of engaging unhappy customers because there are so many of them. In such case, I am baffled as to why bother having social media presence  at all? All you’re doing is giving your unhappy customer base another avenue to vent but not really solving the fundamental problem.

So here’s a hint – you want to be able to be successful using social media as an extension of how you interact with your customers you need to fix your company first. If you don’t no amount of money poured into social media initiatives or any number of so-called social media experts your company hires is going to safe you from failure.