Get Committed Commonwealth Games!
We are in day 6 of the Commonwealth Games and I am torn between my birth country Malaysia and my home away from home New Zealand- proud on one hand whom Malaysia has 3 Gold medals and rooting for New Zealand to get their Gold tally up. I decided to jump on the interwebs to see if there is an online presence for the event, and I am happy to say that they have a Twitter, Facebook Page and a Youtube account, but it looks like what they are doing is quite simple, compare to sporting events. We have seen events like last years Superbowl and this year's Vancouver 2010 Olympics shows us the power of a well executed Social media Strategy. But it's safe to say with the controversy that surrounded the game itself, they got better things to worry about then sending a Facebook update, but one could argue that could the use of their Social Media platforms act as Customer service and PR tool prior to the games ?The Commonwealth Games Twitter, Facebook and Youtube account, is the basic Social Media Platforms to be on among most online brand presence. But what really puzzles me are the unbalanced engagement the brand delivers. The Official Commonwealth Games Facebook page has about 156,695 "Likes", it certainly has engagement and interactivity going on. Now with their Twitter and Youtube accounts, it's a whole different story. With Twitter, the tweets that are coming through are pulling content from its Facebook profile and occasional tweets about who won a medal in what event. Now there is nothing wrong with this, basically they are using Twitter's Platform for its main purpose, and that is sharing news. Before you jump out of your seat and disagree with me, Twitter was never a Social Network it’s a content sharing platform. However, what differentiates a brand from the others, is the hard work and service a brand puts in order to connect with their fans/followers, which the Commonwealth Games Twitter page shows none of that connection whatsoever.The last stop is the Games Youtube page, which is probably the worst online and shameful presence of all three of them. It just looks like someone just set it up for the sake of setting it up, where is the commitment in that ? With the Facebook and Twitter profile, there are similar branding and theme designed for it but with Youtube, they are using the default colors Youtube usually provides for its new users.Now what is the moral of this post? It's about getting committed and working in phases. Basically, when implementing a strategy for your online presence, make sure to give it everything on all platforms, don't do it half-heartedly, you might as well not bother. It’s much better to start small and scale it from there, because that way it can be easily measurable, and you are working in phases. If you are to set up your presence on most of the popular platforms and then realize that only Facebook works for you, you are wasting time and money. So work in scalable phases.