No one will dispute that there is a lot of press about social media. It comes at us with all of these interesting findings, successful case studies, how-to tips for starting up your own social media efforts and much more. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that more people are venturing out on their own to try social media with their brands that we’re starting to see more of what does NOT work than what does work.
A recent case in point would be the Sara Lee campaign. From a first glance, it looks like they’re headed in the right direction. They have video content from Second City, Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as posts written by mom bloggers. They definitely know where they should be targeting and are trying a variety of different things. So what is it that went so awry? Well, it’s not so much what went awry but what hasn’t happened yet. After analyzing the campaign, a Forrester Research analyst made the critique that, “The company is using social tools in a very advertising 1.0 way.”

Ouch. Calling your campaign “1.0″ is probably one of the worst things you could say about any  social media campaign. One thing we can learn from Sara Lee is that they got such a harsh critique because they weren’t engaging anyone. They didn’t have any consumer interaction, and that’s what social media is all about. It’s not just to be observed like an ad on Google, it’s meant to be used, it’s meant for sharing and it’s meant to be experienced.

The other thing that can be learned is that Sara Lee did this all in house. Now, that’s not to say all brands should talk to an agency, but I think it’s good to note that social media isn’t exactly the easiest thing to implement or continuously update. An agency can really be helpful.

All in all, I hope to see more successes than failures in the world of social media because it is incredibly interesting what can be done to get people interacting with your brand. So here’s to innovation!

Read full article about Sara Lee’s social media campaign here.