Approval Processes Make Your Social Media Stream Suck (but there is an alternative)

10 Things I Hate About Social Media Approval Processes

One of the worst thing agencies ever did to social was to agree to the approval process. I hate approval processes even more than I hate scheduled posts and, for those who have been following me for a while, you know that I hate scheduled posts quite a lot.

[for those of you who prefer reading to watching, here is the script]

So, for those of you who either equally hate approval processes or who are or wondering, “What the heck is wrong with approval processes?”, I give to you:

10 Things I Hate About Approval Processes

1. The approval process slows things down.

I’ve used the phrase ‘the speed of social’ to describe how different the pace of social media is to any other media. Like the speed of light or the speed of sound, it’s fast. There is a teensy tiny opportunity to participate in or comment on most things that are happening in real-time and if you miss that window, you miss that opportunity.

An approval process, no matter how fast someone says they are at turning something around, will inevitably close those windows.

2. Approval processes waste so many people’s time.

I’ve heard of situations where every post has to go through a chain of 4–5 people for edits/input. There may be that one person on that chain that really loves re-wordsmithing everything, but everyone else is thinking, “Man, I have better things to do than to nitpick 140 characters.”

3. Approval processes put everybody on edge.

This is probably the worst part of these processes at all. Social is supposed to be fun and creative and inventive and engaging, but once you get in the cycle of abuse that is approvals, you start questioning everything. You go from “how can I be more engaging?” to being nervous about oxford commas.

4. Approval processes suck the pleasure out of social.

I’d participate, but I just don’t care anymore.

5. Approval processes make every post incredibly dull.

By the time the posts cycle through committee, they are grammatically perfect, structurally sound, factually accurate and completely boring.

6. Approvals remove the human voice from social.

Professional…isn’t a tone that works on social, btw. It’s distant and not vulnerable and not warm and human.

7. Approval processes bring out the worst in people.

In practically every language, there are dozens of ways to say one thing and somehow approval processes tend to get stuck in the minutia of those versions.

8. Approval processes miss the bigger picture.

From minutia to myopia, too many people stuck in the cycle of approvals focus in on the details at the expense of the mission. They bog people down on the shit that doesn’t matter when they could be spending that time on things that make a difference.

You can’t see the forest for the tweets. 😝

9. Approval processes are unnecessarily expensive.

You want to know what you are paying your agency for? Not for being creative or interesting or inventive. You are paying them for all of those meetings where you go through the content calendar. I once sat in an hour long content meeting where 10 people sat in the room to go through 3 Facebook posts. 6 of those people were agency folks. The agency charged an average of $125/person/hour. Just the approvals cost $250/post!

10. Approvals erode trust, deter spontaneity, and are decidedly ANTI-social.

Rarely do approval processes add any real value to social and, more often than not, they detract value from it.

And for those of you who say, “Well, approvals help catch errors.” Social isn’t print. If you post something with a typo, you can either edit or delete it and post again.

But I’m also not saying to make social a Wild West. It DOES need to coordinate and fit in with everything else you are doing within the organization. Instead of approval processes you should be doing ALL of the following:

  1. Hire smart, savvy people who are good at social, who can write, and who you can trust with this very intimate tool. If you are hiring inexperienced, junior staff, you are doing it wrong. You need experience in this role (experience in social).
  2. Use frequent editorial meetings (weekly is advised) with the entire team to get on the same page when it comes to the tone and voice and language used. These to talk about all of the approaches to communication from the organization, btw, not go through social posts and rework. PR, Comms, advertising, sales, and more can also learn from the social approach.
  3. Get the social team involved deeply in multiple aspects of your company and operations so that they get a steady stream of input on how to represent the brand online. Social needs content and this is a great way of making sure they have accurate content.
  4. Make sure you are measuring the feedback that matters — that from your followers and customers — and grow and improve with it. Listen to what works, what doesn’t, and watch competitors and other organizations that are doing it well. This doesn’t mean you copy them, just that you learn what works for your audience.
  5. Have fun with social — engage your audience — and focus on conversations and building relationships. You can’t do this if you are being micromanaged. You need autonomy to have conversations.

If you want to be truly social, you need to shed the legacy processes and open yourself up to experimentation and making mistakes more. You may end up with a few grammatical errors, but I guarantee you, you’ll also end up winning more followers.

Tara Hunt @missrogue

Written by

Founder + CEO: Truly Social Inc (@trulysocial), author The Whuffie Factor, Speaker, Pug lover. http://youtube.com/tarahunt

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