Technology Merely Facilitates

If you give an illiterate a typewriter, he can't write a novel. He can't write a sentence, and if he manages to bang out a string of characters that happen to spell out a word, it's by random chance. If you set up a Facebook page for a socially inept brand, it doesn't become able to develop and maintain positive relationships. If it happens to gain even one additional sale, it's by random chance.

This problem stems from an overabundance of faith that technology, alone, grants competence - that a person or an organization who is completely unable to do something will be somehow transformed into an expert if the technology that experts use competently is made available to them.

When a person (or a company) is good at something, they can do it with a bare minimum of tools. Some of the most powerful, eloquent, and graceful phrases in the English language were scratched down on parchment with a feather. Those who wrote them didn't need a word-processor - though if they had one, chances are they would have at least been more prolific.

When a person (or a company) is not good at something, the most wondrous technology cannot grant them the abilities they lack. And this is the reason many companies remaon inept at using social media, and often do themselves more harm than good when they attempt to use it to connect with customers, prospects, candidates, and the public. That most companies have social media presences that range from the pathetic to the offensive demonstrates the magnitude of the problem.

This is likely the stem of the problem, but not its root. With time and effort, skills can be learned and some level of proficiency developed. But even before that can happen, there must be the desire to succeed. And that's where the problem begins: companies want to leverage social media to achieve financial results, but they don't really want to be good at social media - in the same way that they want money, lots of it and as often as possible, but many don't really want to serve the customer or provide genuine value in order to earn their patronage and loyalty.

And in that sense, it becomes clear that technology is not the savior of a firm that has poor customer loyalty. The problem is more in the culture of the organization - the real culture, as evidenced by their behavior, as opposed to the lofty language of their mission statements and the clever phrases they print in their marketing materials.

If a company genuinely desires to have a good relationships with customers, chances are that it already does. The adoption of social media will merely enable them to build relationships with their customers online exactly as they do in person, in print, and over the phone - and their efforts in the social channels will amplify their success.

If a company does not genuinely desire good relationships, but is parasitic and manipulative, chances are they have alienated their customers. The adoption of social media will merely enable them to affect people online exactly as they do in person, in print, and over the phone - and their efforts in the social channels will amplify their failure.