Social Media.
The shock news from last week – Weatherspoons closes social media accounts.
On the face if of it, it seems a bit mad. Here we have a major pub owner leaving
a number of ‘free to use platforms’ with a reasonably large following that has been built up over a number of years.
Question to ask is why?
If you take a moment to consider a couple of things.
Facebook and Twitter do not have the best of reputations at the moment, and I can
imagine a time when a corporate body is sued for releasing a customers information
because of the use of such platforms. GDPR could bite a few people on the bum here,
and getting Facebook into court won’t happen – but Acme Limited – the local Car Parts shop is far easier.
Of course in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica saga and the consumer awareness of
the security of data we’ll see more people leaving the social platforms. WEB 3.0 is
coming sooner than we thing – and that will be fully encrypted which will make
a good number of social media firms without a future. There are all ready a good number of apps and more to come.
But that is not the whole reason for Weatherspoons to leave the platforms.
They’ve realised that actually, as a marketing tool they are not very good as sales
tools for a good number of businesses. Sure, as part of the marketing mix they
make sense – but they’ve found that social media is just a distraction for staff
and without the evidence of a positive return on the time spent – they’d be better off doing something else.
Now. I’ve often be called an ‘anti social media’ expert – I have been saying for years
that social media is not the ‘all’ for marketing any business. You do need to focus
on where you customers are at, what watering hole they are turning up to drink at, where best to get your marketing message out to them.
Importantly, we don’t turn to social platforms to buy. We turn up to be social, to get updated, to have a bit of fun. Not to buy stuff.
Sure, for some social is the tool, but it’s no panacea. Be aware of where you use your
resources, spend your time. Wetherspoons have worked it out for themselves and you should too.
If you don’t know how to work out where your market is at, get in touch I have some tools that will help.
I’m booking sessions for May – Borrow my Brain you can book yours here.