I had a conversation with a client this morning that triggered this piece.
To his credit, he is what I call an ‘atypical’ client, in that he fully understands both the power of social media (when used correctly), and how much WORK one has to put in to gain any kind of traction in this marketing space.
Until you’ve done it, you don’t get it, and he’s done it.
On more than a few occasions, I’ve heard small business owners complain about the cost of hiring someone to strategize, build and run the chunk of their marketing that is social media (and let’s face it; isn’t it all social media by now?).
Because social media started out as something that only ‘teens took part in, it was purely ‘social’. So some business owners appear to be largely unaware of the impact that social media has now. They generally have no idea how muchwork it is to cut through all the white noise that’s already in front of their prospective customers on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
Ask that business owner about buying ad space in their quickly dying local paper, and they’re all about it. But talk to them about social media/digital marketing, and the objections come fast and furious.
As someone who lives in the social media space, I’m surprised by those who assume that what we do, is still purely ‘social’, like it’s some kind of ‘add on’ to their already existing (or non-existent) marketing. Some even ask, “why should we pay someone to do this for us, when the tools are free, and from what we understand, can be automated?”
The question always makes me smile. It’s not a good smile.
I think that the majority of those who manage facebook services social media for companies large and small would agree with me when I say that managing this marketing aspect for those companies is anything BUT free.
It takes time, it takes patience, it requires strategic knowledge, and it definitely requires skill. Sure, the tools can befree, but even then, they’re only free to a certain level. Past that point, you’ve gotta “pay to play”. And if you’re paying, you’d better damn well know what you’re doing.
Learning how to apply strategy to the use of those “free” tools costs a lot more than money. It’s insane how time consuming it is, and you know how quickly those computer minutes can add up. That time, is time that the average business owner can’t afford to spend on social media marketing because he/she has a literal hundred ‘more important’ things to do, and think about.
He’s not interested in ‘getting his hands dirty’ with all of the testing and tweaking, and more testing and moretweaking of his marketing strategies. He thinks that he’s “spending good money” on someone who can simply put his marketing on autopilot, and forget about it.
Let me let you in on a secret; there’s been a ton of ‘chirping’ about automation when it comes to social media, but fully automating your social media marketing isn’t a good thing.
Social media for business is essentially meant to start a dialogue with your customers, past, present and potential. Period. Conversation leads to familiarity. Familiarity leads to trust. Trust leads to sales. It’s that simple.