The point of that last post
Most of my posts get written at night and then are scheduled to go live the following morning. So it went with my last post on using social networks to build relationships in response to the economic downturn. I had just finished the post and was getting ready to call it a night. I’m not a Blackberry addict, but I do usually check my messages one last time before going to bed both as preparation for the following day and just in case there is something I need to reply to.
One of the messages I had was a fairly ordinary E-mail invite to a webinar. What caught my eye was that while it was E-mailed directly to me, the greeting was “Dear Craig”. I’m going to avoid naming the company, but even more ironic was the subject of the webinar: “How to create a winning collaboration strategy.” Yet even more ironic was this short comment stating the core value-add of the webinar:
Learn how to get dramatic business results from collaboration with a people-centered strategy.
Umm, your “people-centered strategy” apparently doesn’t know that my name is Dave, not Craig.
It gets better.
Checking my E-Mail in the morning, I saw a follow-up message from the same sender. Taking a quick glance, I saw it started off with “I am re-sending the email below because many people alerted me…” Great – they corrected the problem. Arriving at work I read the rest of the E-Mail which said the problem was that many people reported that the E-mail was corrupted and unreadable, not that their names were wrong. This update E-mail was still addressed to Craig.
So what’s my point?
My point is not to write a negative post; it’ not really even to have a quick chuckle at the irony of the situation. And it’s not a cautionary tale about making sure to double-, even triple-check mailers for accuracy before they go out.
My point is that today’s social tools can cut both ways. Sure, you can get “dramatic business results from collaboration…” You can also shoot yourself in the foot pretty easily too. I still think a lot of companies are straddling the fence when it comes to new marketing strategies, and mixing “target marketing” tactics with “social networking” themes. Nothing wrong with that, we all move forward in our own way and at our own pace.
What I don’t get the sense companies are doing though is realizing the game has changed and the stakes, in some sense, are higher. At least expectations are higher. I’m not knocking this company for making a mistake – we’ve all made mistakes throughout our career. But when their E-mail goes on to say:
If you’re not familiar with Company X, we deliver enterprise social networking combined with collaboration. Businesses use Company X to reduce by 1/3 the time their staff spends every day searching for information and people, and to speed up cycle times in virtually all functions across the organization.
and you got my name wrong on the E-Mail, you’ve got instant credibility issues.
So don’t read this post and think I’m saying you can never make a mistake. The point I’m trying to make is that if you’re trying to play in the social networking / collaboration space, then just as the opportunity is higher, I think the expectations for authentic messages and relationships is also higher. One “whoops” can detract from a whole lot of good work.
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