Every now and then, we all get involved in a conversation that’s already in progress. Most people will listen and ask questions to establish context and meaning. Without comprehension, remarks can be misconstrued and advice misapplied.
A popular piece of advice in social media is “fail fast.” Or even extended to “fail fast, fail forward, fail better.”
Don’t believe it.
This advice makes a lot of sense to the research & development function. These are the people tasked with product innovation, experimentation, and helping bring concepts to commercialization. A great example is Sir James Dyson, an inventor who recently wrote In Praise Of Failure.
This advice doesn’t make much sense in the marketing function. Why? Because these people are tasked with building customer relationships. Failure for these professionals – particularly in social media – means:
- Being company-centric not customer-centric
- Dishonest and disengaged communication
- Inability to meet campaign targets and sales goals
- Wasting resources – budget and time, in addition to opportunity cost
Marketers who fail usually get fired. This isn’t some structural injustice that needs to change – it means that poor performance gets what it deserves.
Does this mean companies shouldn’t experiment with emerging technology and new opportunities? Not at all. Smart marketers plan investments similar to financial asset allocation, where growth opportunities are strategically layered into a strategic plan.
Here’s what fail fast really means, as written by venture capitalist Mark Suster:
Fail fast = quit and give up easy = spaghetti against the wall = no clear strategy going into your business = no ability / willingness to try and pivot as market conditions change = easy way out = today’s management mantra that will be laughed at in 10 years.
Fail fast if you want – but just be aware of who’s recommending it. Personally, I prefer helping brands succeed instead.
Fail fast, as I have always heard it, is a great concept for start-ups in the ideation or product development phase, and for established companies that seek a new solution through innovation. For those situations it means, don’t plan your ideas into non-existence/ don’t use planning and strategizing as an excuse not to deliver/failure to launch is usually worse than failure to orbit the moon. Why? Because failures are teaching moments, we launched, exited the earth’s atmosphere and there wasn’t enough fuel to orbit the moon. So what now? Embrace the failure for the lesson it offers: bring more fuel next time! Failing fast means arriving at the lesson/innovation faster-evolution accelerated.
I fully agree that failure in social marketing efforts can sometimes be detrimental in the ways you describe. It could also be as simple as retweeting your company’s blog posts only to find out that no one is reading them. This would then inform your strategy in a new way, although you failed to reach your customers with that tool, perhaps another would work better. What it does not mean: stop blogging, stop trying, stop communicating. In a world where social is growing rapidly there are still a great deal of companies and executives within those companies who have resisted adoption to the extent that they are missing the boat completely.
At the end of the day, good strategy and execution means that we know what the potential failures are and have calculated the risk. Then, in light of those risks we boldly launch and begin the learning process.
Great perspective, Austen. You hint at – and I’ll say that – patience is also an important tool. This concept can get overlooked quickly in a rush to see results.
Peter-thanks for your response. You helped my verbose message find a sharper point-patience-yes. Also, congratulations on your new position at Dachis group!