Time Is Never On My Side

The Rolling Stones lied.  I find more and more that time is never on my side.  It may not always be working against me as it does with my hair line, deadlines and movie theater lines, but it never is helping me out. 

When talking about social media, time is the biggest cost. Social media is the most available, low cost, accessible media out today. People only need the time to blog, update and monitor their twitter lists.  There are so many times a week when I remind myself that I should be updating my blog. Yet, I have to make the time and put this out.

I recently read a blog about automating Customer Relationship Management or CRM.  This is a touchy subject.  Basically it means any time someone tweets about Wendy's, they can get an automatic reply from their local store.  This is an amazing way to save time, but it makes Wendy's seem robotic.

Just think about the last time you were in the maze of phone options that most large companies come up with as a part of customer service.  The hairs on the back of my neck go up higher and higher with every "Press 1 if you want to talk to someone in India, Press 2 if you want to talk to someone in Indonesia."  Is that where social media is going? 

Social media should be about having a conversation and not just yet another way to push a message out to the public.  Let them come to you, become a fan and want to get your message rather than shoving it down their throat.  The problem is... it takes time.