cluster*cluck

Don’t worry—I’m not going to harp about how awesome social media is, and how you must harness the raw power of the Crowd in order to find success in this Brave New World. Blah blah.

Because it's my blog, and I said "Brave new world." That's why.

The truth is, social media is still wildly misunderstood, particularly as far as marketers are concerned. Intelligent startups have addressed this problem with two methods:

1. Bring on a dedicated community or social media manager to monitor social media channels and act as an engaging brand representative.
2. Put social media aside for the time being, until they have an actual reason to use it.

Here are a few signs that you work for a startup that has no idea what it’s doing with regards to social media. And for the purposes of this article, I’m going to reference my fictional startup, FanFix (for background on FanFix, check out this article).

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Let me paint you a picture. You’re all dressed up, so classy and held together. A nice dress, shoes that actually match, and you smell awesome. Good for you. Problem is, you don’t have a date. No one seems to be interested, but you’re looking for connection.

Your friends pick on you, in what they think is good spirits. You haven’t had sex in so long, and they think that’s hilarious. Poor thing, you. It seems they’re all happy, with their relationships and one night stands and whatever else. But you. You’re just sitting there in your classy dress. You smell awesome. And no one’s there to enjoy it.

This is an app without users. It’s all prettied up, hopefully functional, and so damn ready for users. “Please come engage with me,” your app says quietly to itself.

Just like you can’t sit around your house, smelling all awesome, waiting for a date, neither can you expect users to magically flock to your app.

Obviously, it’s time for marketing.

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I love anything that makes people around me pity laugh. I live for the half-hearted chuckle, the uncomfortable smile.

So I’m living the dream right now. Right now, I’m working on branding a fun sexy time iPhone app. Which means: euphemisms. All. Day. Long. Living and breathing double entendre.

They’re not all home runs. I’ve wrangled a compendium of euphemisms that haven’t really…performed too well for my tastes. Which, seriously you guys, are so refined.

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This will make sense in a second.

Startups are a special breed. I’ve worked with startups at varying stages of their life cycles, and I’ve become fascinated with what determines success. I’ve identified a few elements that can be controlled.

To make things rhetorically simpler, let’s pretend for a moment that you, sir or madame reader, are the founder of a company with a really freaking great product called FanFix. Let’s say it’s a web app to assist folks in writing the best fanfiction they can possibly write. It has tools for notes, research capabilities, a community, a content-specific image library, tagging, built-in tips, and self-marketing tools.

Given the recent corporate interest in fanfiction, funding was a no-brainer. You’re fully funded, and now have a carefully selected team of really smart folks.

Here’s a high-level look at how not to botch up your startup.

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