It’s time to be honest with yourself. Are you a social media pretender when it comes to business?
You say you’re on social media, but you’re not, are you? I’ve seen it before. My business partners have seen it. The people I talk with about marketing, they’ve seen it, the broken links, the lost opportunities, it’s bad for business. I know you’re probably not trying to fool anyone. You may think you’re on all the latest platforms, but if you’re not putting forth the effort to do it right, you might as well not be there at all. And you look like a faker.
Come on, out with it. Are you a social media pretender?
So you have social media icons on your website
Good for you! Except when I click the icon, the link is broken. I know links break sometimes. Things happen. Facebook goes down, Google can have issues, websites need to be fixed. It’s okay, we all run into these problems sometimes. But when the issue is consistent then, whether you meant to fool anyone or just have a social media director who’s asleep, you’re not on social media.
Visitors to your site will assume you are either a faker or incompetent. Which do you suppose is worse? Neither are good!
So you have social media icons on your website and the links work
Yay!!! We click the icon, up pops your Facebook page, and…your last post was sometime in mid-2017. We go to your Twitter page. But apparently, you don’t like Twitter, because the last time you tweeted anything was February 2016. LinkedIn? You didn’t know you can post on LinkedIn, did you?
In what sense are you on social media if you never visit your accounts?
So you have links, they work, and you even post content
Now we’re getting somewhere! But where are we getting? What do you post? There are so many different options! You can use your social media presence to inform, to educate, to entertain….Oh, I see, you post quotes. Pithy, inspiring quotes. Quotes are good, but they have to serve some function, help you make some point. If you’re just posting quotes because they’re cool, your social media presence is going to be exactly like that of a dozen other people (perhaps other people in your company) who are also posting cool quotes—probably the same quotes—for no clear reason.
What do you suppose readers do with social media pages that thoughtlessly recycle the same old stuff? Well, if I and my business partner and our friends and colleagues are at all typical, readers respond by clicking unfollow (or hide). That stuff is just noise to us. We turn down or turn off the noise so we can pay attention to the people who give us quality content.
And if after months of cool quotes and other place-holders, you finally post something unique and important? Well, that’s too bad, because we’re already gone. Again, are you really on social media if you don’t have any followers?
Don’t be noise. Post quality content from the beginning.
So you have links, they work, you post content…and then more content, and more, and….
Posts, content, sharing, you’ve got some great stuff, here. Good! But are you reading anyone else’s stuff? Are you engaging at all?
Imagine you walk into a networking event. You mingle and start talking. If you never take a turn listening and never respond to anything anyone else says, do you think anyone will want to listen to you? Of course not.
Social media has to be a conversation. That means you share content, but you also read and engage with other people’s content. That’s how you build the relationships that will lead others to engage with you. That mutual engagement is what being on social media means.
It’s right there in the name; social media is social.
Doing Business on Social Media
All this engagement might sound like a lot of work for—what? A few “likes”? But let’s look at what happens when you don’t put in the work.
Say you have a job opening. Or say you’re running a special or expanding your services, something you want customers or clients to know about and respond to. So, you post notices to your social media accounts, and…crickets.
If you haven’t built those relationships, nobody will be paying attention when you post something really important. Or, if they do notice, they won’t take your post seriously because they won’t think well of you. Why work for a company that can’t be bothered to engage with anyone else? Why buy from someone who wouldn’t give you the time of day until they needed something? This is what people will think. You won’t get the benefits of being on social media, which is why I’m saying you’re not really on it.
So, come on, be honest with yourself. Is this the social media presence you want? Or is there more you can offer?
Are you tired of being a social media pretender? Contact Us!
Posing as a social media pretender is an important topic, we even did a short podcast episode on it. You can listen to it here.