Social media SWOT analysis: what's your opinion? Help us improve the list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats about social media

Social media SWOT analysis: what’s your opinion?

Posted on Monday, August 10, 2009 by Facundo Villaveiran

Hi all,

Over the past few months we’ve been working closely with our clients covering different social media aspects. There are plenty of factors to consider regarding the hows, dos, don’ts and understanding the possibilities and challenging implications around social media.

Based on the usual concerns, we thought it’d be helpful to work on a quick SWOT analysis of social media as an information vehicle for any company. It’s be great if you could leave your comment below so we can work on a final, more official version of this SWOT. Thanks in advance!

Here they come:

Strengths:

Direct contact with audience (almost like face-to-face)
Allows for conversations (deeper engagement and relationship building with audience)
Somewhat more measurable than other traditional channels e.g. Url shortening / Web Analytics / Twitter Apps that tell you about followers/activity/ level of engagement, Facebook & You Tube Insights, etc)
Leverage of reaching more and more people with less effort thanks to technology (i.e. spreading the word).
Cost-effective in the sense most of the platforms are free. They just demand time.
It is a channel in continuous change and improvement
Human factor: Your brand becomes more HUMAN (i.e there are REAL PEOPLE behind your Twitter, Bebo, LinkedIn, Facebook account)
Build strong, long term relationships through online social networking, at a faster pace than just relying on traditional face-to-face networking

Weaknesses:

Effort vs results: Even if it is more measurable than other channels, it is difficult (especially for small business operations) to balance the effort put on social media against the results obtained.
Very personal: To ensure you get the best out of social media as a channel, these efforts should handled by individuals who understand the company (i.e Watch out if you are going to outsource these efforts)
Ever-changing environment: Because the channel is in continuous change/improvement, this means that companies have to adapt effectively and promptly.
Consistency: Engaging with your audience at a direct level means more efforts in terms of keeping a consistent message/ corporate image (e.g You may get away with not advertising in one month on the radio, but if you develop a following online, you just can’t disappear all of a sudden.)
Making up for mistakes: The time-frame to correct errors that affect your audience is less. Because you are heavily exposed, your company has to take action more promptly than if you weren’t (especially if people are having conversations about your brand, you will have to engage and clarify)

Opportunities:

Being present where stuff happens: People (b2c or b2b) research for products and services online and value more the opinion of other individuals than whatever a company may say about their own offer. If your company is present in an interactive environment like social media, the opportunities for engagement, conversion and most importantly clarification of doubts regarding your brand, are countless! Think about connecting with people that already want your product, but also recovering unsure prospects and building a relationship with them.
Developing a following/ audience that auto-nurtures itself: Your efforts in Social media, together with the effort of your following may mean that your audience become your best sales people
Talent coming your way effortless: Because of the possibilities of exposure that Social Media allows for, interacting here, may mean that future talent (in the shape of employees, partners or, you-name-it) will come your way through the power of connecting online!
Reach out to certain groups that traditional media didn’t allow you to: Because Social media is for everyone, sooner or later you’ll come across people you never though of as your client. This opens the doors to building new relationships but also to valuable feedback that can help you develop your products or services more intelligently.

Threats:

In the loop: Heavy brand exposure (for the good or the bad)
Espionage? Your competitors are more likely to know what you are up to
Besides trial and error: Your “Social media officers” have to remain human. While this is an opportunity it is also a threat because during conversations humans can make mistakes and your following will notice.
The giants are close: Other stronger competitors that will be in social media too may result in your efforts having to double in order to reach out to your audience.
Consumers DO judge: Your mistakes are noticed and the consumer WILL expose you. Get ready for prompt action.
And happily ever after? Access to continuous information and direct contact with brands sometimes means less faithful customers:
If good service meant a customer for life in the past, now it is not enough.

All your retention efforts through social media, may mean nothing if your audience engages with you competitor all of a sudden for whatever reason. (Dog-eat-dog environment)
How happy are your employees? You have to accept that your employees’ skills are more exposed: Either if they blog/facebook or have a strong LinkedIn profile, their own views are out there for headhunters to take them away from you. Value the good people. Also, as everything gets more and more social, this means that employees may talk about your brand online, for the good or the bad.

So what do you think? Help us improve this social media SWOT by leaving a comment below and sharing the post.

Later,

Facundo

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http://www.channelship.ie admin

Comment was posted on Facebook by Nick McGivney :

“It’s more vital than ever for companies to recognise what/who they are as regards brand personality. If they don’t, they run the risk of allowing an individual’s personality to ‘become’ them online. Krishna De and Claire Boyles had an interesting little chat today about passing the twitter/blog post responsibility to an intern, and how disastrous … Read morethat would in all probability be. If you’re Innocent Smoothies, there’s no point in getting grumpy Jake from accounts to be your Twitter presence if he cannot share the brand essence, and likewise if you’re an Army recruitment campaign you can’t be fluffy either. Know who you are as a brand, because as you rightly say interaction at this level is very much face-to-face. What face do you want customers to see?”
http://www.btbtraining.com Niall Devitt

Hi Facundo

Effort vs results : Even if it is more measurable than other channels, it is difficult (especially for small business operations) to balance the effort put on social media against the results obtained.

I don’t think that this needs to be case if before you engage with SM, you:

Start by the describing the result/s you are looking for.
Calculate the amount of activity, time and cost required to achieve using traditional means.
Measure your social media efforts against this base.

The key point here is that many people choose to measure after the event??

SM is no different to other aspects of running a business in that if you start without a plan, you are planning to achieve very little.

Great post.

Regards,
Niall
http://www.channelship.ie admin

Comment was posted on Facebook by Charles Dowd :

“The funny thing is that corporations are NOT human. Therefore they should not act human in social networks. what is needed it to develop a way for a corporate to communicate with its customers: that does not mean acting human.
The focus of social media for a corp should be to nurture and reinforce community involvement: that is, harness the … Read morecustomers (who are the humans!) to build your social presence. The corp has to learn to let go – your customers are NOT you employees, you cannot control them, you can only try to keep them happy, serve them well and your brand values will be reflected”
http://www.codegaconsulting.com Una Coleman

Good analysis Facundo. Like the “spionage” term! There is alot of hype right now around the impact social media can have in supporting one’s business growth objectives – through increasing one’s pipeline and growing brand and name awareness. Interestingly, in Gartner’s most recent Hype Cycle Report “2009 Hype Cycle Special Report Evaluates Maturity of 1,650 Technologies” http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1124212 its research suggests: “Technologies at the Peak of Inflated Expectations during 2009 include cloud computing, e-books (such as from Amazon and Sony) and Internet TV (for example, Hulu), while social software and microblogging sites (such as Twitter) have tipped over the peak and will soon experience disillusionment among enterprise users,”. They suggest that looking beyond the current hype potentially transformational technologies that will hit the mainstream in less than five years more likekly include Web 2.0, cloud computing, Internet TV, virtual worlds and service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Their study claims that awareness of social technology is high because of the popularity of related consumer social software and Web 2.0 services. In business there is evidence of take-up and experimentation accompanied by high expectation – to the point where dissillusionment is beginning to set in. There are no magic bullets. To make social technology work requires time and effort and a clear objective which ties in with a businesses overall marketing strategy.

Finally, Gartner comments “Microblogging, in general, and Twitter, in particular, have exploded in popularity during 2009 to the extent that the inevitable disillusionment around “channel pollution” is beginning. As microblogging becomes a standard feature in enterprise social software platforms, it is earning its place alongside other channels (for example, e-mail, blogging and wikis), enabling new kinds of fast, witty, easy-to-assimilate exchanges”.

The benefits of your SWOT analysis help us set realistic expectiations for social technology and our respective social networking strategies.

Una Coleman
Codegaconsulting
http://www.channelship.ie admin

Comment was posted on LinkedIn’s Web & Creative Ireland by James Hogan:

Strength: Easy to Setup up
http://www.channelship.ie admin

Comment was posted on LinkedIn’s Forum on Social Media & Networking by Patrick King

Strength: Very useful if you are setting up a digital engagement strategy.
http://www.channelship.ie facundo

Hi all,

Thanks for your comments!

Niall,

I agree with setting goals, I guess my point was more going towards the newcomer and how tricky it can be if the whole hype that Una describes overwhelms you.

Una,

I missed that Gartner report, indeed very interesting, thanks for sharing. I suppose that with their army of consultants they must have some Nostradamus’ skills
It’s true that the combination of something being in-vogue PLUS the fact that one is into it, makes one think that it may be a paradigm changer!
My feeling though, is that there is truly a change in the way organisations communicate and it is only a question of that behaviour lasting or not. If it lasts, then disillusionment is not such a strong enemy, since all we’ll do is dump Twitter and welcome the next one
http://www.channelship.ie admin

Comment was posted on LinkedIn’s Linked Strategies by Ian Farmer :

Strength – social media
Weakness – social media
Opportunity – social media
Threat – social media
http://www.channelship.ie admin

Comment was posted on LinkedIn’s Linked Strategies by James Dearsley :

S – Fantastic networking of personnel and information. Exciting to see how it will move business to the next level
W – Quite frightening to see how it will affect personal relationships in the future. Could we hide behind our computers?
O – Endless opportunity – how much space have I got to write
T – I agree with Ian here 100%. Social Media itself.
http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/blog Eoin Kennedy

Apologies if this one is covered and I missed it but is one of the key strengths not being able to easily communicate in a multimedia fashion from video, audio, slide share etc These are powerful mediums that traditional media struggles with.
http://www.channelship.ie facundo

Comment was posted on LinkedIn’s Members’ forum on Social Media & Networking by David Wells:

I think for small businesses the investment really is low – as Fred says – entry cost is zero. I’ve been using linkedin for about 2 years & simply by spending 30 mins (at most) every day I have built a large network who know what I am doing, reading, attending etc. As part of a overall relationship marketing strategy – ie face-to-face, postcards & social networking it’s a ‘[must have’ for today’s business.
http://www.saveafewbob.ie Niall Mc Henry

Agree with Niall D above….as a start up Time is one’s most limiting resorce. With a never ending list of urgent (imortant and not important) business to attend to, I feel that the development of our Social Media strategy fits into the Important but Not Urgent category (quadrant 2 for Stephen Covey fans). Ultimately our success will, to a large extent, be determined by our ability to spend more time developing our SM strategy.

How about a SWOT on each individual medium….maybe starting with TWITTER? Now that would be useful!

Look forward to Channelship’s findings

Good initiative guys
http://www.channelship.ie/blog Fred

Thanks for your comment Niall. That’s a good suggestion… we’ll consider a SWOT on a specific platform indeed.
Best
Fred
http://www.achievemarketing.ie/blog Denise Fay

Hi Facundo & Fred,

I really liked the posting – and there isn’t much to add to the super comments you’ve already received.

With my strategic marketing hat on, I’d definitely agree with Niall above – anybody starting in SM needs a plan. If you stick to it, then you can measure results. You should have a benchmark to begin with and then measure activity against it – whether its more traffic to your site, more online sales, more engagement etc.

You mention it as a threat – and I do love your words – “Spionage – Your competitors are more likely to know what you are up to.”

I think this can also be an opportunity if the tables are turned. SM allows a small (and large) business to research its market with ease. You can find out easily what your competitors are up to, what words/activities are trending in your market-place, find out about new entrants etc

Back when I started working in 97 and the internet was in its infancy, this information wasn’t so readily available. You really had to pay for it…nowadays, you can do it at the comfort of your own computer.

Finally, with my copy-writing hat on, I’d advise caution on having too many bullet points in any section. The short term memory can only process 5 (plus or minus 2) pieces of information…any more and the sub-conscious brain will glance over.

With such good information here, you certainly don’t want that to happen.

Take care
Denise
http://www.channelship.ie admin

Hi Denise,

Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts.
I totally agree about keeping things as simple as possible. The more bullet points, the more time you need to keep up with platforms and reports

As we always say when giving workshops: “Take the time to find the tools that will work for your business/industry and develop a plan”…if you really want to see results
What gets measured, gets done.
Best
Fred
http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/blog Eoin Kennedy

Apologies if this one is covered and I missed it but is one of the key strengths not being able to easily communicate in a multimedia fashion from video, audio, slide share etc These are powerful mediums that traditional media struggles with.
prswooz

Will social media ever crash? It's not the economy but it's definately feeling that 'boom'!Should we rely on the inevitable? Or shoud we be more cautious as what goes up…tends to come down?!!
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