Yesterday we hosted another Live Chat where I answer questions for an hour surrounding a topic. Many times through the conversation I was asked why I think people are reluctant to join the social media revolution. I think it’s simple. I believe those who are reluctant don’t understand how important it is to their business.
I also believe they think they don’t know what kind of impact it’s actually having. Traditional marketing is becoming less and less important. Paying incredible rates to send your message to a supposed mass of people, who may or may not be interested, it becoming a thing of the past. Building a loyal tribe of folks who are sold out for your product, and doing it for low to no cost is quickly becoming the most effective way of marketing.
Would you rather spend tens of thousands of dollars hoping to spread your message? Or focus on building a loyal tribe of people who will carry your message for you because you provided them with something that benefits their life at no cost to them? For me, I’m picking the later.
On top of that, you have to understand that trust in you product will come faster by peer influence than any advertising. In fact, 90% of people purchasing online trust peer opinions as opposed to 14% who trust online advertising.
If you’re still not convinced, and even if you are, you should check out the video I posted in Social Media Revolution – Why Social Media Is So Important To Business. I’m pretty sure it will change your mind if you’re currently not using social media for your business.
With all this, I would like to say thank you to the incredible commenters on this blog who joined in the conversation and helped to enrich the lives of others!
Question: What is your take on the importance of social media?
Social media is a CONSTANT learning proces. Steady reading and keeping up with technology is imperative if you want your voice heard on any level today.
@skottydog Very true Scott! The big social media platforms of today could very well be gone tomorrow (MySpace??). If we aren’t learning and adapting we’re behind, almost instantly!
@Skropp @skottydog The tough thing is not getting onboard, and then having to catch up. Learning new platforms is much easier since I’m in the mix.
@Chris LoCurto @skottydog So true! Get in the game, it’s easier to learn!
@Skropp @Chris LoCurto
“You can’t learn how to swim if you don’t get your feet wet”, my dad used to say! But with today’s fast changing technology, you need to be Michael Phelps to stay afloat!
A perfect example of rapidly changing platforms is this commenting system. I JUST got my head around DISQUS, and then Livefyre hits the scene!
Have you guys noticed that when you see a comment threat in your email, and you click on the link, it shoots you to Chris’ page, and then scrolls down to the comment immediately? How awesome is that?
@skottydog @Skropp @Chris LoCurto
I just wish LiveFyre could filter the comment spam…
@Lily Kreitinger @Skropp @Chris LoCurto Why would you say that? Don’t you want to buy furniture from England via this site? :^P
@Chris LoCurto @Skropp @skottydog Thanks for making me feel better, Chris – since I HAVEN’T been in the mix. And it IS tough getting onboard and trying to jump on a moving platform – and having to catch up. I feel out of breath – and I haven’t left my office!
@Skropp I’m behind…
Great blog and it is so very true about folks going online and taking the advice of peers on certain product lines. Here is an example that hit home how much this is happening across all age levels:my son “Christopher” was at the walking track with me last evening and has been saving up to purchase a certain batman toy,he let me know that it was “a good one” because Amazon reviewers gave it 4 stars…..lol that from a 11 year old.You will either figure this out as a business or you won’t..Keep up the great work I enjoy reading your blog…
@Gary Mast Haha. What a great example. It’s crazy how much quicker kids now pick up technology than even people my age (27)…things are moving so fast and we’ve either gotta keep up or fall behind…fast!
@Skropp @Gary You’re an old man Mark… and I’m almost old enough to be your mother, so let’s skip the age talk… LOL
@Lily Kreitinger @Gary Haha yes’m.
@Lily Kreitinger @Skropp @Gary I had a crowd gathered around me at work today–all of the twenty somethings were amazed to see my “Emergency Only” flip phone. They were looking at it wondering how I text on it.
When I told them it didn’t have texting, and that I don’t have an iPhone, they were confused.
Then they sarcastically asked if I had voicemail. I replied, “yes, but I have to call 1990 to figure out how to set it up!”
I’ve never felt so old. And cheap.
@skottydog @Lily Kreitinger @Gary Haha. That’s priceless!! I had a boss that had an iPhone for work. When he left he turned in the iPhone and got an old phone w/o texting. When he told me that I gave my “I just saw an honest politician” amazed look and said “you can do that??” haha
@skottydog @Lily Kreitinger @Skropp @Gary Now THIS is hilarious. Here I am – grandmother of 16 – with an iPHone, an iPad, Kindle, two computers – a mac and a dell – and YOU have a flip phone???
@Gary Mast That’s awesome!! That should speak volumes to all entrepreneurs!! This is your next generation client.
@Gary Mast Now that is funny! An 11 year old knowing what it means when Amazon gives it 4 stars – wow. That tells us something.
I believe it is HUGELY important to building (and keeping) a platform and marketing your business. And I KNOW this. Unfortunately there has been a disconnect for me between my “knowing” and my “doing”. Maybe my age has something to do with this – even though this is NOT an excuse! It has been a struggle for me to move from the standard way of marketing to Social Media and I find this struggle common among my peers in my industry. The ones who have embraced it are successful. “Resistance” to this (as talked about in the War of Art) has been extremely strong in my personal world. I am hoping that between Chris LoCurto and Michael Hyatt – I will hear it enough that I break through that “Resistance”.
@LouiseThaxton There’s always hesitance to new ways of doing things. I’m 27 and I resist. I fought Facebook for a year, vowed I’d never get twitter (and had to eat my hat there), barely started a blog, and am still resisting pintrest (sooner or later I’ll give in on that one I’m sure!). It takes constant effort to change!
@Skropp @LouiseThaxton I vowed I wouldn’t give in to Pinterest… and had to eat my words. It’s awesome and highly addictive. It’s perfect to build your brand in a very appealing way. I see pictures of your soccer camp on there…! 🙂
@Lily Kreitinger @LouiseThaxton Haha…and I see my wife dancing around saying “I told you so!” haha
@Skropp @Lily Kreitinger @LouiseThaxton yes, yes, yes. My grown daughters kept telling me “you will just LOVE Pinterest…” and me telling them “that is exactly why I am NOT going to sign up…” but I did -and I do (love it) – so there.
@Skropp @LouiseThaxton Well, if you are resisting at 27 – I don’t feel so bad! I’m 59 – there’s a REASON I’m resisting! I have made some resolutions however – and going to BREAK through the resistance!
You’re exactly right Chris. Social media is the way of the future. And it has leveled the playing field like never before!
I think it’s important to point out like we did in the chat yesterday…while its hugely important, it’s still only a tool. Like Mike Hyatt quotes, good marketing will only make a bad product fail faster. You’ve gotta have a great foundation if social media is going to help you. A Facebook page will boost sales, but won’t create them. A twitter account will connect you to customers, but won’t make your product better.
PS The Blog ROCKED the chat yesterday!!
@Skropp I think social media is the way of today and people better jump on the bandwagon or they will be wondering who moved their cheese…
@Lily Kreitinger Solid literary reference…haha
I may break Scott’s record and reach the character limit for the comment with this question. I have shared with some of you that I just got hired for a permanent position at the place where I have worked as a contractor for the past eight months. This job would have not been possible if it weren’t for social media. Being on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and my blog has allowed me to have a solid online presence and connected me to the right people at the right time. (If you google my name, the first 14 pages of the search show direct references to me).
I really didn’t want to join Twitter or Facebook because I could care less about what time someone does their laundry or walks their dog. However, when I found the value of the content that is published FOR FREE daily by the leaders in any field imaginable, I joined the revolution. It is true that garbage in equals garbage out, so if you waste your time with nonsense, you will hear your brain cells scream when they’re slowly dying of boredom when you consume social media junk.
However, if you participate in awesome tribes like The Blog and feed your mind and soul with wisdom, you will soar. Social media allowed me to meet my husband almost ten years ago. Through social media I nurture friendships, I share my life with my extended family and friends back in Mexico, and I connect with great people daily. We have direct access to great people that would not be possible otherwise.
HOWEVER, social media is only a reflection of who you are off-line. If you don’t have a solid reputation, outstanding work ethic and are transparent in every other area of your life, there is little that social media can do for you.
@Lily Kreitinger Your last paragraph sums it up beautifully!
@Lily Kreitinger Once again, out of the park! I didn’t want to join twitter either, i thought it was stupid…but the unfiltered access you have to the minds of the best and the brightest is STILL jaw-dropping to me! I can talk to people like Chris, Michael Hyatt, Dave, and dozens of other leaders that I would NEVER have access to otherwise.
@Lily Kreitinger Man! You go LIly! That was so well put. ‘Like!’ As Michael Hyatt repeats often: a bad product will fail faster with a great marketing strategy. (Not word for word.) But social media is the same. You have to be solid offline and online to succeed at this.
@Lily Kreitinger Lily – you are so right on all counts. I have learned so much from the leaders and authors I follow on Facebook and Twitter, as well as inspiration from pastors and church leaders. Most of the blogs I read were discovered through links from Twitter or mentions in blogs like The Blog.
And yes, I have reconnected with some wonderful people through social media – which is a priceless benefit.
@Lily Kreitinger Loved this insight. I was on Facebook a few years ago and quickly got creeped out, so I bailed. Then, months later, started my blog. All the social media experts said to reconnect, and connect with as many more people as possible.
I resisted at first, but got back on eventually (solely for the purpose of my readers having a nifty button to click them somewhere else related to my blog.).
Fact is, Facebook still scares me. We give up too much of our privacy to them. Knowingly.
But I set up a page for my blog, and have created a meager following thus far, offering nothing more than a link to my blog from the FB page.
The point is, I’m only just beginning to make use of FB to promote my site, albeit reluctantly, but have seen a decent increase in activity on my blog because of it.
We have to learn this stuff, or hire someone that can advise or explain it. But to ignore it is a wasteful use of resources.
Even using it without fully understanding it has boosted my activity and stats. And that’s only one form of social media. It’s exciting and frightening at the same time.
Guess Chris lifted the character limit settings! ;^}
@skottydog @Lily Kreitinger There is absolutely no way to protect your privacy, other than being smart. Recently a girl in Australia posted a picture of a pile of cash on Facebook, and was robbed a few hours later (surprise!). Police blamed Facebook’s privacy settings… when in reality the girl’s stupidity posting a picture of cash was to blame.
I can Google your name and find out more information than I should rightly know. However, if you’re intentional you can feed Google information that dominates the search results (like @Lily Kreitinger ) to create your own identity (and privacy) online.
@Jonathan Henry My name is a little too common… I get lost in the crowd 🙂
@Lily Kreitinger You said it!
@Lily Kreitinger Just one more thing, Lily. RE: Facebook. I feel the same way about the way about how some use Facebook – but I personally love it. And you will never see me post about laundry or walking my dog (oh, yeah, I don’t walk my dog – )! Facebook has probably given me more business just by having a presence and people knowing how they can contact me. the other mediums – well, not so much result. But I have to say I use FB more and am more proficient in it.
The importance of Social Media to me: The more I get into working on my blog, e-mail marketing (not social media, I know) and LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, the more I see just how valuable these tools are. For me, I have really noticed how effectively they help you build trust with prospects. That’s worth a lot!
What is vital to me, as a micro business fighting to grow, the no/low cost involved is a major asset. I literally CANNOT invest in any other form of ‘advertising’ right now. Social media helps me reach out to potential clients without breaking my already strained budget.
My two cents.
@Aaron Nelson Great point Aaron! I think I see as much benefit in self improvement as I do business wise with using social media…our friendships here being evidence of that…
@Skropp @Aaron I agree to that. Social media has opened the door to professional development and training opportunities that normally you may just not be able to access.
And Networking on steroids!
As always, I have questions. They are not questions with concrete answers.
1. I love blogs, love to blog, have been doing so for 4 years, and currently have about 100 readers per day. In the blogosphere, that is less than nothing. Is it helping my business?
2. LinkedIn is something I have to keep current and received no benefit and don’t understand what it is for unless one is hunting for a job or an employee. Does being on LinkedIn help my business?
3. I went exploring in my sister’s Facebook account once and decided it is 1/4″ deep and 6 miles wide. Would a FB account help my business?
4. There is no cell phone service where I live. How can I do Twitter? And would it help my business?
I believe social media is almost the only way to market these days. However, if I do all those things, I will have no time to create the products that I sell!
‘Scuse me – gotta go bash my head on the wall for a bit. . .
@cabinart Regarding your first question, I’ve heard several of the more prominent bloggers I follow that they finally reached a point where they don’t write for their audience, but rather for themselves. Writing lets you focus your thoughts, and the more focused you are, the better you perform. Writing consistently on a blog disciplines your thoughts, so not only is your thinking more focused, but also more disciplined.
I’ve also heard that people that suffer from writers block can get over it quicker by throwing paint on the wall or sketching or doing some other art that allows creativity to flow. Perhaps writing could be a catalyst for another form of art that doesn’t involve words?
Have you looked into Pintrest? I’d think with what you do, that would be the most apt way to “share” your work or even share the things that inspire you through pictures. Of course, that is one social outlet I’m not involved in, so beyond that basic suggestion I can’t tell you any more. 🙂
@cabinart Also, if you record the epic battle between your head and the wall, and put it on YouTube, it very well might turn viral… In all seriousness, YouTube has made a blender company’s antics famous (Google “Will it Blend?”). You can still watch Bob Ross videos on YouTube too.
Art may be a personal endeavor, but the action of creating still can be social. I’m sure there is an audience that would watch an artist at work… there are hundreds of videos of paint drying. Wineries and breweries have huge glass walls where patrons can watch the magic happen, even if the magic is something as mundane as rotting fruit or plants. TLC has a show about how stuff is made. You create magic with art, not only with the output, but with the process as well.
@Jonathan Henry @cabinart Those are some great ideas Jonathan! I envy the way your mind works!
@Jonathan Henry thank you! You made me smile.
@cabinart Here’s my two cents:
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. You don’t need a cell phone to have Twitter 😀
@Lily Kreitinger Thanks, Lily. Love the succinctness! The reason I put a cell phone with Twitter is that I thought it was the kind of thing you had to carry around and constantly be doing something with. I’m feeling a slight weakening toward FB.
@cabinart I’m not an expert but I use all of them. I can explain in more detail via e-mail
@Lily Kreitinger That would be wonderful – hmmm, unwilling to put my email in this place. How about going to the contact page on my website?
@cabinart Sure! Let me work on it and I’ll e-mail you.
@cabinart I sometimes feel the same way! I have thought of hiring someone to handle for me – but I would probably micro-manage it even if I did that.
@cabinart My two cents: Is blogging helping your business? Again, like Hyatt and others convey, you’re in this for the long run. 100 readers per day today could turn into thousands in a year if you are consistent. How often are you blogging? It’s helping your business in a few ways that I can think of: 1.Thought leadership – you’re showing those 100 readers that you know what you’re talking about. 2. How well are you connecting with those 100 readers? 100 people in a connected tribe can really do something.
LinkedIn – for me, the power of LinkedIN has been in joining relevant groups. I look to work with Human Resource managers – so I’ve purposefully gone out of my way to join those kinds of groups. Once in, I follow conversations and discussions. If I have something to add to the convo, I add. If I notice someone that could be a good potential prospect, I try to ask them to add me to their network. So far, LI has brought me over 100 subscribers to my weekly newsletter, and and at least two interviews which are still in process for business.
Again, I think Hyatt says something like this: but you should find out where your target audience likes to hang out in social media, and then join them. If they aren’t on Twitter, don’t tweet. If they aren’t on Facebook, don’t FB. If you think they are everywhere, maybe you need to focus down on your audience more. We can’t be everything to everybody.
Hope this is helpful in some way.
@Aaron Nelson Thank you – that is very helpful!
I blog 5 days a week. I know “my people” and it is such a nichey niche that there may be no groups on social media. As I read Platform, I hope to get a better idea of where my tribe is.
Love hearing how LI works for you – you are the first I’ve ever “talked to” who actually uses the thing. I’ve asked every friend I have who is on LI how it works for them. To a person, they say “I never look at it”.
Doesn’t “nichey niche” just tickle your funny bone? 😎
@cabinart I wonder if you could tell someone what your blog’s purpose is? What do you want it to accomplish?
Nichey niche sounds funny…it also sounds mighty difficult to work within. Am I right, or sort of off base there?
My niche – we develop custom made English classes to corporate clients – is crowded. Think: being stuffed face to face with thousands of others on a busy subway at rush hour.
It’s crowded in here, but you know what? That means the business is in high demand. People want what we have to offer. It’s not easy. (We’re struggling right now. But it’s easier than starting from an empty market. From zero.)
I heard an interview on that a while back. The gist: if your niche is empty, you’re in for a hard journey because you have to blaze the trail on your own.
If you’re in a crowded space – or a space with business being done already around what you do – things will be a little easier on you because the demand is already there. You don’t have to do the grunt work of creating it.
Make sense?
LI – maybe it works better for some than others? Would this space really be the spot where your potential tribe hangs out?
@Aaron Nelson Make total sense! It has been a long and lonely road until the internet came along. Then, (when DSL showed up) I began connecting with other artists who were taking their work seriously and treating their art as a product.
I’ve often thought I must have been dropped on my head to think I could earn a living as an artist in a very poor, uneducated rural county, in a very isolated town within that county. But, like writers are told to write what they know, I have to draw and paint what I know (and love).
I will give thought as to what the purpose of my blog is. What I’d like it to accomplish is a big fat following that resulted in more sales. I want to be like the Pioneer Woman or the Yarn Harlot. They are the Queens of blogging, and I love them! If I knew how to put a link in a comment, I’d send you all there for a laugh and for the WOW factor.
@cabinart Where are you trying to sell your artwork? (It’s beautiful, by the way.) Is your market local? Or are you aiming for outside your community? That is also important to consider. Perhaps your local community is too small a marketplace.
With the internet, you can gain followers and customers from all over the place. That’s a mindshift you need to make. My customer may very well not be my neighbors.
@Aaron Nelson Thanks for the compliment, Aaron.
My subject matter is very local, my market is small, but I don’t think I have fully tapped it out yet. And I’d love to get folks from all over the world who visit the national park I paint to think of me when they think of “my” park!
I sell locally in shops, occasionally in galleries (we have about 3 non-profits in the entire county), by appointment in my studio, from my website. It is commission work that keeps me rolling – that and my drawing students.
I’m all for social media as a tool for spreading great ideas, but by the same token a lack of a gatekeeper is somewhat dangerous. Social media is not always filled with great ideas and examples to live by. Of the top 20 Twitter accounts, Barak Obama’s is the only non-entertainer (unless you throw in Oprah). Only a handful of people in the Top 100 are not musicians or athletes (Bill Gates and Google’s official Twitter). As a frame of reference, Michael Hyatt has 125k followers; Lady Gaga has nearly 25 million. Clearly, we don’t gauge the quality of the message with the quantity of the followers. But it still makes you wonder how good we are at spreading great ideas. Does our future depend on a song, or on building a great business, or church, or community?
The real world plays a part in building a social platform. Dr. Amr Hamzawy (a political scientist) had about 6k followers before the Egyptian Revolution [about a thousand less than Chris]. His patience and somewhat neutral negotiating position between the government and the revolutionaries put him in a place where he has over 400k followers now (there are an estimated 500k people on Twitter in Egypt). He didn’t build his social presence first, he built his message (Egypt can have a functioning Western-style democracy, peacefully) and then the crisis put him in a position of authority in the social landscape. He was important offline way before he was important online, and people flocked to him in both areas.
@Jonathan Henry Spot on as always Jonathan! That’s my thought too, if you don’t have a foundation before social media, it will do you no good.
And while the proportions of followers is interesting, I look at it as I only have 60 followers…but 45-50 of them I wouldnt have access to without twitter, so even my meager following is a step up.
What a relevant post after Michael Hyatt’s Platform! Of course, if I had it read, I’m sure I’d be able to contribute some kind of witty comment…
As it stands, nothin’.
Anyway, I think another reason people don’t use social media is, they have themselves convinced they don’t know how, it’ll be too hard, or they’ll somehow mess it up.
@Laura Johnson I’ve started wading into social media in the past 3 months, and it is overwhelming at times…that’s why I can’t wait to read Michael’s book, to get some sort of handle on what I SHOULD be doing…
@Skropp YES!
Thought I’d weigh in, since I’ve somehow managed to make social media my entreleadership business the past two years.
First, I think any understanding of how social media is going to work for your business can be helped by reading two books – first “Tribes” by Seth Godin and “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. You should be using social media strategy as a way to reveal and support your expertise to a precise audience (niche) of current and potential customers. No longer do you have to rely on the middle man of media or advertising to do that, instead you can present yourself and your brand as a living breather problem-solver for your customers.
Before you dive in, of course, you need to know what you are going to say (or what content it is that you are sharing). You would be surprised how much of what you do or say during the course of a typical business day is going to be interesting to potential customers and plant a seed in their minds that this is the person I am going to go to when I need to find out about/buy/invest in XYZ.
The key to social media success is consistency of content (we know Chris is going to blog everyday and podcast every two week and Tweet often) as well as an openness to use social media as a relationship, rather than a straight selling, tool.
The stats you see are going to be overwhelming, what with 1 billion people on Facebook and some people having 10,000s of followers, but I’ve seen plenty of business (and clients) survive and thrive by feeding, nurturing and connecting with a few thousand loyal customers online.
But it does take a commitment of time and resources to create the right strategy (which platform, what content) and execute.
@mkokc AWESOME post! So much in there for me to learn! Thanks.
@mkokc The 2 messages I see over and over when it comes to social media are consistency and relationships. You reinforced that again.
@cabinart @mkokc Couldn’t agree more. Selling is relationships.
@mkokc Thanks for a great comment – this is something I really need to dive into. I guess the “commitment of time and resources to create the right strategy and execute” have been my problem! Maybe I can resolve!
@LouiseThaxton @mkokc
@LouiseThaxton I think I could help with that. 😉
New question for anyone listening – where do the points come from by our names on livefyre?
@cabinart Joel said one time that it has to do with how many times you comment I think. And maybe the number of “likes” your posts get…
@cabinart From the number of likes you get on your comments.
@Lily Kreitinger @Skropp Thanks! Sort of remember something being mentioned once. . . got squeezed out by everything else.
@Lily Kreitinger @cabinart I was just thinking of asking – thanks!
@cabinart It depends on the ratings/ review pf your comment by the fellow readers.
I love chatting on social media sites like facebook, and twitter but I have not so much time for chatting. I think social media is doing a great job to convey a message from one person to many. It is playing a big role to spread the awareness in the people.
You have an interesting question. Reading “mature” content is not illegal. Knowingly providing pornography to someone under 18 is. So the minor watching porn is the “victim,” not the suspect.
Thank you so much! There have been so many mixed messages, and it is great to hear from someone official that myself and thousands of people around the world aren’t doing anything wrong.
When posting a question, do you ever check the boxes to share your question on other social media?