The essence of social media is knowing your audience and sharing content they’ll love.
There’s a lot of confusing advice out there with respect to using social media to grow your business and bottom line. But many of you who’ve been trying to make it work for years just aren’t feeling the love.
In reality, the social media landscape is constantly changing thus creating high overhead in training costs. It’s also a platform you do not control. It can be taken away from you without warning or compensation, regardless of how much time and money you’ve spent developing your channels and communities. Most often, this results in a non-recoverable and significant loss both financially and with respect to goodwill.
And, as you’ve likely experienced, many people are using social media inappropriately or ineffectively (sometimes both).
Frankly, the numbers don’t tell a compelling story for getting overly involved with it. This applies even to those who have tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars available to risk on advertising and audience buying. Unfortunately, many people losing the money they’ve invested in social media advertising and channel development simply can’t afford it.
Should you use social media?
Yes, I do think there is a place in your marketing mix for social media. But I don’t buy the hype promoting that it will drive huge amounts of traffic to your website that easily converts to sales.
Social media can (and should) be used to help you increase visibility, grow your reputation, and build productive relationships with others. But, it can’t be the only way in which you accomplish these objectives for the reasons I stated previously. That would be foolish and short-sighted.
Like all business tools, you need to learn how to use social media strategically and effectively. It’s not a magical panacea for all that ails your business. And, used improperly, it can be harmful in ways you cannot imagine.
Keep your use of social media in perspective. Stay on top of changes to ensure you’re using it well and wisely. And treat it as you would any other investment in your business — by measuring its true cost and comparing that to your results.
7 Social Media Tactics Wasting Your Time
In October of 2014, Neil Patel had an excellent post published on QuickSprout titled 7 Obsolete Social Media Tactics You’re Wasting Your Time On. His advice applies as much today as it did then. Take a minute and do a quick review of your own activities to see if you need to make any adjustments in how you’ve been using social media in your business.
Here’s Neil’s list of obsolete social media tactics that you’re wasting your time on. Read his full article for details. (You’ll be glad you did!)
- Posting whenever you’re free
- Selling directly to your audience
- Trying to game your follower count
- Sharing without optimizing
- Being self-promotional
- Linking directly to someone’s site
- Adding one too many social sharing buttons to your site
When you make conscious, informed decisions with respect to your business you’ll be far more likely to be rewarded with success. And, if you’re not working toward that, what are you working for?
More next time. Until then, remember to LOVE YOUR WORK, whatever it may be.
PS Did this post speak to you? If so, please feel free to share it with your own communities, friends and followers. Thanks for sharing the love! ♥♥♥