The biggest mistake made by social media efforts today is this — losing the “social voice” of the audience through the technical buzz and pomp that is digital development. Many social media development efforts today suffer from tech-heavy focuses that in the end, could lose them their audience and their purposefulness.

It is much the same affliction that the main stream media has experienced over the years — a lack of focus on the client-driven, audience-centered developments that put them on top to begin with. Although content is purported to be King in this digital day and age, it certainly cannot trump audience needs, wants and desires. To allow this to happen is certain death.

A perfect analogy for this amazing development is this: imagine a man realizes there is a huge demand for cashmere sweaters. Not just any sweater, but bright orange, pink and green cashmere sweaters. He recognizes this need by observation of his target audience, and begins efforts to develop, market and sell these sweaters based on feedback from the folks who have the need or want.

A year later he hears about a new machine that can hand-knit wool sweaters very efficiently and effectively, and can create various designs, including stripes and other decorative features. In his zeal to develop the most technologically advanced sweater manufacturing business around he focuses all his energy and resources on developing the manufacturing processes and improving the technological developments of the plant.  In the meantime he loses sight of his past client connections and the wants and desires of his target audience. Instead of meeting with representatives of his clientele for their ideas and suggestions on these changes he forges ahead confident that new developments are the best way toward the future.

His efforts may be successful — sometimes cutting-edge ideas take off with a life of their own. Most likely, however, by closing the door to his target market he loses the perspective of those who will keep him in business. And by looking to technological change and development as the way to business success he loses sight of the fact that even in the digital age, the customer is still always King. In the end their vote is what matters most. Does your product answer their questions? Does it solve their problems? Does it fill a need, or even a deep desire? If not, it is of no use no matter how “technologically pretty” it may be.

Social media developments that lose site of their target audience in in favor of technological developments and focus risk the same fate. Once you close the door that links you to your audience, you lose an avenue of information that is imperative for success. The audience, most especially in the social media world, wants to speak to you — they want their voice to be heard, and they don’t want to be told what does, and doesn’t work for them. If their voice is ignored they will vote their opinions with the click of a mouse — to the next website that will listen.

New and existing social media developments are advantaged when they ensure that the voice coming from their social media community is just as loud as that coming from their IT and tech development departments. To focus energies on building the “best” site, or having the “best” technologies, and ignoring the needs and uses of the target audience is certain death. Think Twitter is all the rage and are convinced you need to spend vast resources incorporating it into your business? How about asking your audience if they even want or need these developments. Better yet, find out if its use would improve your ROI before you spend resources.

Social media developments must start, and end, with the voice of those who use them. Talk to your audience as if they were making the decisions. Let them know you recognize their place as King, and that their voices will always be heard when new developments are made. Avoid the mistakes of giants like Facebook, who decided their audiences “wanted” a Twitter-like interface, made the developments and then launched them without getting the pulse of their users first. Although this development obviously wasn’t the death of Facebook, the backlash was huge and makes the social media giant vulnerable to future upstarts who focus their energies on listening to the needs of their users.

Not all social media development efforts are destined for Facebook greatness, but by not losing sight of the needs of social media users — particularly their need to feel heard and listened to — your social media development efforts are far more likely to succeed.