Silicon Roundabout: 10 Ways To Suck At Social Media

By Emilie Giles

Ten ways to suck at social media and how volleyball is being brought to London.

These are the two things we learned about at the Silicon Roundabout meet-up we hosted last Friday, sponsored by City Beach London.

The night kicked off with a talk by Chemistry's Luis Carranza entitled '10 Ways to Suck at Social Media', focusing on fails made by brands when trying to embrace platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Having been well received at Social Media Week in February, it was awesome to hear this great talk again. So what are the 10 most common fails? Well, here they are:

1) Mirroring: This is when you reflect a perceived image of your audience back at them. It rarely works and people get turned off by brands trying too hard to be cool.

2) Eager Beaver: This is when you try to be in too many networks at one time. Pick the ones you can manage and don’t go crazy trying to build a following for no reason. Decide what your objectives are before you get too eager.

3) Deaf Ear: Most companies don’t have a proper listening and reporting plan. This is one of the easiest things you can do and one of the biggest areas of improvement for brands.

4) Asking Too Much: 90% of people won’t do much, 9% might do a little something and 1% will actually contribute. The more you ask of people, the more reward you need to provide. A big ask = low participation. If you want lots of people to take part, ask for things that loads of people can take part in.

5) Internal Buy-in & Support: It is difficult to make the transition into social media if your company has no history of doing it. Internal buy-in and support is crucial, especially during the transition process. 

6) Lose It: This is when you lose control of your brand . A community manager may write a damaging post, or your brand could get hijacked by activists. Having a crisis plan in place is essential.

7) Ugly Stepchild (orphaned media): This is when social media is seen as an afterthought. Or when it’s done in isolation of channels. Orphaned media is when you abandon a campaign or project online to fend for itself.

8) Measurement OCD: Some people focus so much on measurement and use it as a way of dismissing social media projects. If you want ROI, you need to plot numbers into a formula. If you don’t assign values, you don’t have a formula. Make an effort to assign a monetary value to engagement and interactions.

9) Cheap Replacement: Social is not a cheap replacement for other media. It will cost you time or money and as we all know, time is money. So which one do you want to spend?

10) Underestimate: A lot can happen when people unite for or against something. There’s no guarantees either way, so don’t underestimate the power of people talking to each other. Have plans in place to ride the wave (good or bad) if you happen to get one.

The presentation finished on an up, with the winds changing and the focus being on how these fails can be prevented by taking a look at five ways not to suck. To see the presentation, you can view it on Slideshare, where it is available for download.

Next to present was Kevin Quincey, of City Beach London, discussing his project to build the first and largest indoor beach and sports complex in London. His hope is that this can be opened in White City, mirroring a similar complex in the US called The Epicenter, which Kevin played a big part in creating.

It was also great to see how social media has been given a lot of consideration in relation to the project, with Kevin setting up a Facebook group and aiming to set up an iPhone booking app which can track live scores.

The conclusion: a very successful evening with great speakers and an awesome crowd! Pictures are below, for more click here.

 Kevin Quincey and Luis Carranza

 Unrulies and Members of the Silicon Roundabout Meet-up Group listening to the presentations