"Nothing" happens more often than you might realize. While there is no official count of unused applications, stagnating Facebook pages, or inactive communities, the social media landscape is burdened with dead weight. These types of failures tend to slip away quietly with little fanfare. They don't ignite passion -- they don't really accomplish anything, except perhaps waste time, money, and space.

To illustrate, let's look at social media efforts from Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers, competitors in the weight loss category.

Readily identified social media initiatives include forums, blogs, Facebook pages, applications, and so forth. And while there have been clear efforts, minimal activity can be observed across the board. Jenny Craig's blogs featuring its spokespersons have no real interaction between the brand and its customers. Jenny Craig's Facebook page, for the most part, is a health tracker application, which appears to have launched May 2008 with a few members and almost no interaction or posts from the brand. Jenny Craig's Wikipedia page is also not current.

 
Weight Watchers' Twitter page contains all of three tweets, all posted Feb. 22. It has been silent ever since, although it has 1,167 followers. Rather than interact with these existing followers and build its following, it directs folks to its Facebook page.

This page appears to have recently launched; therefore, it's too early to tell how active it will be or how this launch will potentially reflect lessons learned from its other earlier initiatives or from its customers' initiatives, which include a highly active, populated Facebook page targeted at college students.

Lesson learned
Have a clear goal in mind for social media programs, and focus efforts on achieving it. Know your audience. Create something of mutual value. Observe and listen to what your customers are already doing and saying. Recognize that certain aspects of social media require an ongoing commitment. If you discover that you miscalculated your resources or a path you chose was not ideal or suited to your objectives, then regroup to move positively forward. Create your own definition of success against the available opportunities and align your programs, resources, and expectations accordingly.