Social Media

Why Social Media is NOT Your Savior

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The best social media advice is... social media can't replace your brand!
Here’s why social media can’t save you (and what to do about it).

Every few days I get a question like this:

“We’re a small company and we just started using Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest, etc. How many times do I update? How do I reach more people? Or what tools can I use? We need to keep up and not fall behind.”

The problem with this question… is that it’s the wrong one to ask.

And it reminds me of one of my favorite Seth Godin posts…

First, Make Rice

From Seth

“Fledgling sushi chefs spend months (sometimes years) doing nothing but making the rice for the head chef.

If the rice isn’t right, it really doesn’t matter what else you do, you’re not going to be able to serve great sushi.

Most of the blogging and writing that goes on about marketing assumes that you already know how to make the rice. It assumes you understand copywriting and graphic design, that you’ve got experience in measuring direct response rates, that you’ve made hundreds of sales calls, have an innate empathy for what your customers want and think and that you know how to make a compelling case for what you believe.

Too often, we quickly jump ahead to the new thing, failing to get good enough at the important thing.”

Most productivity and time management systems don’t work because they over-emphasis efficiency and urgency, instead of importance.

It doesn’t matter how good you are shooting at a target… if it’s the wrong target in the first place.

So when someone asks me how to get more Facebook fans, I try to re-frame their question using the “5-Whys”…

How to Dig Deeper and Find the Root Cause

The “5-Whys” is a simple question and answer technique to help you ignore symptoms of problems, and dig deeper to find the root cause. It was developed by the Toyota Corporation in Japan, and it’s used extensively in manufacturing to find and eliminate product defects.

But it’s also a helpful tool to use when you’re analyzing marketing decisions.

Because it will help you avoid making bad decisions, going down the wrong path, and wasting time, money and energy.

So here’s how it works:

“What tool should I use for Facebook?”

  • Why? #1: So I can post more consistently.
  • Why? #2: So I can reach more Facebook fans.
  • Why? #3: So I can get more “Likes”
  • Why? #4: So I can build an “audience”
  • Why? #5: So I can…?

Using the 5-Whys like this helps you uncover the faulty logic.

In this case, let’s assume you did build an “audience”… now what?

Getting more “likes” or “followers” doesn’t translate into more sales for your company.

More sales so you can grow, hire more staff, make more money, or simply stop working so hard.

Here’s the question you should be asking…

“How Do I Get More Clients and Customers?”

The point of any type of marketing is to increase demand for your services and products.

Figuring out how to do that is like making the rice. It’s boring, it sucks, and it takes time.

Instead we want to skip making the rice, and jump in to Facebook because it’s more fun and you get instant gratification.

The problem with Facebook, is that it won’t build your business.

It’s not a good channel at reliably, systematically, and automatically increasing demand for your services and products.

You can be the best Facebook-er on the planet, and still be broke.

Because there’s a lot more to marketing than updating a Facebook page.

Like what?

  • Creating an online marketing strategy that’s systematically turns strangers into loyal customers
  • Organizing your website to automatically generate leads and sales
  • Using proven promotion strategies specifically for your website’s size and type to reliably get more traffic month-after-month

All of which I’ll be covering in-detail during my upcoming training workshops.

Get long-term ROI.

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