Chasing the Social Media Prize is a Losing Effort

Brent Pohlman

Social Media is now the activity that marketers like to put on their resume as having so much marketing experience. Is this real experience or a bunch of fluff?

You see it on people’s resumes and Linkedin Profiles. However, if you ask a follow-up question like how do they use social media in their business, the

Number One Answer is:

Well, I was able to grow our company follower counts on Twitter, Linkedin and Google+ – Are we supposed to be impressed with this accomplishment? Growing numbers – What does that do for business?

Number Two Answer is:

I know how to engage people on social media and not sell. – What does this exactly mean for the company? You can send a few statements, call out a few regular people and gain more company attention. How long till this person starts finding interest in your products or services? How long should you spend engaging people each day on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin? Is this your only job or do you have other tasks too.

Sadly, this is what many marketers hang their hat on with respect to social media. These two answers were common topics of many marketing articles that were often shared on social media sites.

Connecting with People

What happened to the goal of connecting with the right people and building a community of advocates? This can happen through channels like social media and blogging. However, the focus starts with the specific person. This is the part we are missing. Without people, you have no business.

People should be the focus.

If you want to hang your hat on something, try focusing your efforts toward building an experience for the people who are most interested in your service. Show people how you were able to create a better experience in the following ways:

• Increased number of clients served by phone, email, inquiry.
  
• Worked with others designing a new web experience that helped bring in more sales, new accounts and contacts.
  
• Partnered with some outside companies to help bring in new technology, app development, marketing initiatives.
  
• Worked with Management Team in the development of a new product or service offering.
  
• Improved processes at work to help maximize more efficient production.
  
• Able to capture leads from social media and developed a process to better follow up with these leads from social media. – (I want to hire this person)

Summary

The point is social media is an overused, overhyped, busy word which translates into practically nothing. If you don’t believe me, answer this question. If social media is so great, are you willing to sacrifice your time spent using email and phone to use social media platforms exclusively for gaining new clients and retaining current clients. If you can answer yes, I don’t believe you.

Stick with focusing on connecting with people and don’t work by yourself. You will get much farther working with and trusting others in your efforts.

As far as social media, tread lightly. Share your blog posts, see what people are saying. Spend time connecting with people on Linkedin. Use Linkedin differently than others currently use it. Focus on connecting with the best people on social media and stop worrying about follower counts or likes. In the end, will anyone not do business with you because you only have 50 followers over someone who has 1,000. I simply like connecting with great people. I’ll let the other numbers take care of themselves. If I really value my connections then I need to act like it by giving them much richer content that can actually make a difference in their own lives. Treat people like people and don’t treat them like another number.

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