With that said, most social media efforts revolve around a small handful of “luminaries/digital pioneers” who go round “consulting” and strategising on behalf of some big companies/brands. It usually involves the holy trinity of getting a blog up, and setting up a Facebook page and lately Twitter account and then cross-linking all this into one another.

Where I see it failing is exactly a point you’re trying to make, the online space is becoming increasingly human, a social media manager need to be a “personality” just like in real life when you meet new people and start hanging out with a certain group of friends.

You need to stay in contact and constantly do different things and retain the interest and connections e.g going to shows/concerts together, hanging out at a favourite bar, texting and e-mailing one another about significant ups/downs in each others’ lives.

Long-term bonds of friendship is built like that

Now companies decide they need to get into social media cause everyone else is and they don’t wanna seem uncool or behind the times, they hire someone to set up the blog, facebook page and twitter profile and then let that person go. Now some sterile corporate drone/intern sit there and from time to time churn out these uninteresting corporate facts and figures. It just won’t do and that is why many social media efforts fall flat and then the whole thing turns sour and people start pointing fingers and looking for someone to blame.

Social Media cannot be outsourced, the people who run the company, knows the business model and what they’re supposed to be doing, selling needs to get in there and act just like they would in a real life social setup.

And this is not impractical, just realistic, people need to get over themselves and just Tweet themselves about their company and be live, real people with personality. This gets picked up on by whomever happens by and whether or not it actually leads to sales in the end is not the point, all this obsession with ROI etc is SO NOT what it should be about. If you let people see you’re an interesting human being with interesting links and personality to share and you just SO HAPPEN to represent a company that sells shoelaces, they may just next time when their shoelaces get chowed by the dog send you an @message or click through to your website and order some shoelaces just because you’re that nice new Twitter friend with the funny quips who just happen to work for a shoelace manufacturing company. How incredibly serendipitous is this whole Tweeting business!
Mario Olckers´s last blog ..300 Case Studies of Social Media Marketing

The only question they have is: Where and when can I get me some of that?

The bright shiny object syndrome apparently overwhelms any subsequent discussion of the true human costs of social media, since being social actually requires the interaction of a real, live human. And this human draws a paycheck.

(Cue sound of screeching brakes)

When this realization sinks in, the typical response is “my people don’t have time for chatting and wasting time.”

So, the inevitable happens. Lured by the prospect of “free”, they fire up a blog, set up a Facebook Fan Page, create some Twitter accounts and sit back and wait for the adoring throngs to express their undying love and appreciation of their company.

Lively content? (Buzzz)
Genuine conversation? (Buzzz)
Real-time interaction? (Buzzz)

Logically, then, the only lesson that can be gleaned is that social media is a huge waste of time. Unless it’s done thoughtfully as a part of a strategic program aligned with the company’s marketing efforts with specific goals and objectives and sufficient resources applied to training, content development and execution. But that stuff’s just not as fun as tweeting and Facebook friending.
John Heaney´s last blog ..4 Critical Business Lessons Learned From the Droid

Lets take you for a second.

You appear to have joined the page for the free hamburger, not because you’re a fan of TGI Fridays (if you didn’t bear with me on this tangent)

That’s a promotion changing a behavior using social media. You 100% opted in, and there you are, one of the 300K fans. Now, what if they sent you a targeted message that said if you come to the Main and Chippewa TGI Friday’s for Game 6 of the World Series and say Facebook, we’ll buy your entree. Then, when you’re there, someone at TGI Friday’s takes your picture and asks your permission to place it in an album on the page.

As you say, that’s Push Marketing, but you talk about it like it’s a bad thing. To me, that’s using the medium to reward Fans, then letting fans be fans. That’s an engagement that can be measured, scaled, and promoted.

My overall point is this: while I’ll concede that they screwed up not sending you their hamburger, my point is they most-likely scrwed up not thinking about what’s next, and what they will do next. But I don’t oficially KNOW they screwed up, because they aren’t done. If they have something like what I propose coming, then I’ll applaud. If they don’t, then I’ll give them a fail.
Matt´s last blog ..A social media bubble?

They very clearly don’t understand the medium, the culture or the space. When you are talking about emailing everyone you are talking about more push marketing. I am making the point that social media is 100% opt in. No one gives a crap about the brand, they give a crap about what that brand can do for them. You say they didn’t set expectations. I disagree again. The people that joined as fans expected to get the coupon for the free hamburger. I signed up and I have not gotten my free hamburger. That’s why people are pissed. They spent a ton of money vying for our attention, offered a free promotion and didn’t follow through.
keithburtis´s last blog ..Social Media Gutcheck! Why do brands bother Pointing to Twitter & Facebook?

By their nature though, promotions attract non-fans of the brand. People come for the shiny free thing, then leave. So it’s not entirely unexpected that many fans would leave.

To your bigger question, this promotion didn’t let people know what was expected of the people who stayed on the page. The ‘brand’ page is filled with people talking about the brand, but that gets boring after a while. But if behind the scenes, TGI Friday’s was using the e-mail feature on Facebook to target certain people and reward them for being fans (come into the TI friday’s near you and get free appetizers when you say Facebook), then it could be “working”.

My point: just because it appears things aren’t going well, it doesn’t mean they aren’t. We don’t know the strategy, nor do we know the outcome.

And BTW, this is the first time I’ve looked at TGI Friday’s Facebook page, so I have no idea what their intentions are. But I like that they tried to use TV and social media together. That’s a start. Because TV is still one of the bet ways to market a brand. Social media is one of the best ways to let fans market the brand to their friends. When the two do work together, it can be magic.

I am working with a small business that outsources HR services and they have an office in a good size complex. I asked the owner how many people walk by each day, see his shingle and inquire about business. His answer was ZERO.

We were able to show him the numbers of people that were searching for his service types in out specific area. Add to that the fact that no one had a significant presence and we were able to convince him to take action on a blog and even some twittering. It is very important to understand that not all businesses need YouTube, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. Many of them simply need to optimize home base. In my next blog post I am going to get into that very topic.

As far as paying you to help them…I don’t have the answer. Small businesses need to see real value and ROI. No one is cash heavy right now and you need to prove your model… especially in the first three months.
keithburtis´s last blog ..Social Media Gutcheck! Why do brands bother Pointing to Twitter & Facebook?

They spent Millions to generate this follower base. Do they not realize that these spaces are opt in and that anyone can leave at any time? What were they doing to compel followers to stick around? All they did was piss them off by not distributing the coupons. A situation in which they can very easily rectify but choose not too.

I would say these guys dove in head first and naked into the deep end. they were going for it, but they were riding on a platform of push advertising rather than understanding the space.
keithburtis´s last blog ..Social Media Gutcheck! Why do brands bother Pointing to Twitter & Facebook?