Is social media still ‘social’?

 

The dictionary has a lot to say about the word 'social': human society, companionship, friendly interaction, cooperative relationships, organised communities.

Nowhere does it say 'sales vehicle'.

I think online platforms offer a digital form of networking, whether personal or business. Countless people have found old friends they'd lost touch with, rekindled relationships or reconnected with extended family, all on social media. Facebook, in particular, has been a place where personal connections flourish.

At the other end of the scale, LinkedIn started out in 2003 as a business connection platform, a sort of 'dating' agency for employers and job seekers. When Facebook arrived with a completely different look and feel, LinkedIn realised it needed more to attract people, and groups and a feed for sharing thoughts emerged. Facebook then added business Pages. So the gap between friendly and social and corporate business has closed quite a bit.

Don't forget the human beings

Whatever the platform, none of them was built for being sold at. And let's be honest, you don't want to be sold at.

From the human perspective, social media is about connection and entertainment, and I include education in that. If a post is interesting, it's entertaining me, whether it's a cat video or a hot business tip.

If you're using it as a marketing tool, keep that in mind. I think of social media as the online equivalent of a networking meeting. You don't walk in, grab someone and pitch your latest offer. You say 'Hi', you smile, you ask questions and you show an interest in others. If they become a client or customer, that only happens once they know you well enough to trust you'll do a good job.

I'm happy to talk to interesting people, and I judge that in a few ways:

• Their profile: a friendly-looking headshot and an interesting bio.
• Their content: useful and interesting posts, or an endless sales pitch?
• Their messages: if the first DM is a sales pitch, especially one that shows they haven't read my profile, I'm not interested. If they're friendly, helpful, interested in me and offer something useful with no strings attached, I'm far more likely to pay attention when they have something to offer that has a cost.

None of this is about polished video or beautifully aesthetic images. It's about content: what do they have to say?

People don't do business with people they don't like. Offline, it's hard to avoid the sales-only person (though their lack of success will eventually teach them a lesson). Online, they simply get blocked or disconnected, and never know why.

Is a list of 5,000 connections a network?

If you have 5,000 connections, how do you stay in touch? 'Social' means interaction, and you can't maintain that with 5,000 people. Accepting a connection doesn't make a relationship. How many of yours have progressed from the click of a button to a conversation?

A social network is not about the numbers; it’s about the relationships.

Marketing is more than a few posts

 

Many moons ago when I did my professional qualifications, I was astonished to discover that the label ‘marketing’ covered far more than advertising and promotion.

It starts with market research – know your market place

• Companies that offer a similar product or service
• Pricing – lowest to highest – and why the difference
• The consumer and what they are actually looking for.

With that information in hand, marketing moves into development, the ‘D’ of ‘R&D’.  It’s where you look at whether your products or services fulfil current buyer needs.  Do you need something new or to revamp an existing offer?  How does it satisfy the consumer demands and what can you offer that is better in design, pricing, functionality than your competitors?

Now finance joins the party and looks at cost of sale, competitive pricing, profit margins, etc.

Now the action moves over to what most people (including me at the time) consider to be ‘marketing’.  That’s the advertising, promotional activities to raise the consumer’s awareness of the exciting new offer!  In those days this would include press ads, maybe TV ads, getting coverage in the relevant media – publications, etc.  PR – on a broader basis, getting key people (usually the CEO) interviewed or authoring thought-leader articles, and things like getting the organisation entered for awards – and, ideally, winning one or two.  In today’s world, social media, blogs, video material and podcasts all play a part.

The launch campaign is critical and will launch your new product or service into the right communities.

On the back of this the sales team now takes on a critical role, contacting either consumers directly or wholesales and retailers who will stock your product or white label your service.

I remember there being a lot of arguments – about whether marketing is part of sales, or sales is a part of marketing.  I was taught that sales is part of marketing, but it doesn’t really matter – as long as sales are made!  The way I see it a business is really a huge marketing machine.  Every part of it should be focused on delivering value to the customer.

Someone once quoted Karl Albrecht to me ‘If you’re not serving the customer you’d better be serving someone who is’.

Blogging: little and often beats occasional and brilliant

I've written blogs all day today, which is either an excellent or a terrible position from which to write a blog about blogging – you decide.  But it's given me a useful reminder: the businesses that blog well aren't the ones with the best ideas, they're the ones who actually show up.

I've lost count of the number of clients who've told me they're ‘not really bloggers’. What they mean is they wrote three posts in 2019, ran out of steam, and have felt vaguely guilty about their neglected blog page ever since.  Sound familiar?

Perfection is the enemy here

Waiting for the perfect topic, the perfect time, or the perfect 1,500-word masterpiece is precisely why most business blogs go quiet.  Nobody's inbox is desperate for your magnum opus.  What readers actually want is something short, useful, and honest, delivered often enough that they start to expect it.

A 400-word post that answers one real question your customers keep asking will outperform a 2,000-word essay that nobody finishes, published once and never again.

Consistency beats brilliance

Search engines like fresh, regular content.  Readers like knowing you're still there.  And – this is the bit people forget – you get better at writing the more often you do it.  The first post is always the hardest.  By the twentieth, it's just Tuesday.

If a weekly post feels unrealistic, be honest with yourself and pick a rhythm you can actually keep.  Fortnightly and reliable beats weekly and abandoned by October.

Where the ideas actually come from

They're not hiding in some special ‘blog ideas’ vault.  They're in your inbox, in the questions your customers ask on calls, in the thing you explained for the third time this week and thought, ‘I should really write this down’.  Your blog doesn't need to be clever.  It needs to sound like you, and it needs to solve a small, real problem for the person reading it.

The bit nobody wants to hear

Blogging isn't a one-off task you tick off and forget.  It's a habit, like flossing or actually reading the terms and conditions.  The value isn't in any single post – it's in the body of work that builds up over months, quietly proving you know what you're talking about.

So if your blog's gathering dust, don't aim for brilliant.  Aim for done, and then aim for it again next fortnight.  That's really the whole trick.