Be Like The Mailman: Deliver!

Facebook is a wonderful site, but the discussion of ‘best practices’ for businesses will rage on for quite some time.

I think it’s incredibly frustrating when businesses (radio/TV stations come to mind here) go to Facebook to tip-off their followers of an upcoming event, then not deliver a follow-up post.  For example, a TV station posts “tomorrow night at 11, find out what’s make your kids sick at school”, then that’s it.  The story airs, but there is no further mention of the topic.  So, if you were busy when the teaser post was shared 32 hours prior to the story’s airing, you have no knowledge of the event.

I understand the need for teaser announcements, and social networking sites enhance that when done correctly.  I mean, Casey Kasem built a several decades-long career on the use of effective teases during countdown shows.  In the earlier example, yes, you want a viewer to tune in tomorrow night at 11, but what if they can’t?  Or, the viewer is tired of non-stop promotion and they ignore these teaser posts.  Wouldn’t an after-the-fact post revealing the story and leading a viewer to the station’s website be a smart thing to do?  Of course, it drives traffic to the website (which is covered with ad placements), reinforces top of mind awareness of both the story and the station, and helps build the relationship between station and viewer.

Same goes for radio.  If you’re going to go to Facebook and say “listen for a big announcement at 8:30”, shouldn’t you follow up with a relevant post later in the day?  Something as simple as “in case you missed it this morning, we told you…” would suffice.

Even in retail, if a department store posts “check your Sunday paper for details for big savings next week”, how about a wrap-up post on Monday to the effect of “stop by this week for deep discounts on…”.

If social media is relevant enough to use for pre-promotion, shouldn’t it also be used to deliver ‘the payoff’?  That’s my two cents, what’s yours?