Why Are You Still Scared Of Social Media?

Some of you may scoff at the subject with an "I don't do social media", others may see the benefit but simply don't know where to start. There's a reason why 97% of traditional marketers use social media - because it works. The world has changed and it's time to get with the program or get left behind.

I knew absolutely nothing about so-called 'social media' until last fall when I jumped into LinkedIn with both feet. I avoided Facebook like the plague, I didn't know I had a Google+ account until eight or nine months ago and I hadn't really looked at Twitter until this July. I was intimidated by some of it and didn't know enough about the rest to see the extraordinary benefit. I'm lucky in that my mentor is a social media beast and his activity and the results it generated spurred me into figuring it out for myself. It's an incredibly powerful tool and you owe it to yourself to develop your ability.  

If you have concerns about maintaining your relevance in the workplace, those concerns are just as valid now as they were for the slide rule generations that saw new faces entering the workforce that grew up with personal computers. The twenty-somethings ready to take your job live and breathe social media in the same way that the rest of us can handle a computer mouse. The landscape is undergoing another tectonic shift and it's up to the rest of us to adapt.

 The two questions or goals that drive my entire social media efforts are, "How can I create real relationships that introduce me to potential clients?" and "How can I use my expertise to educate and create value for an audience in need of my services?" I believe that cuts to the core of what networking and marketing is all about and social media does a phenomenal job of providing the means and variety of methods to achieve this.

As most of you already know, if you aren't on LinkedIn and actively utilizing it's power, then you're off the map of the 21st Century business world. It is a very valuable tool for creating and communicating with your professional network.

It truly does operate as a one stop shop for everything you want people to know about you, which is important because they often view your profile before engaging with you directly. Anybody that clicks on my profile can learn just about anything they need to know about me in less than five minutes. Because of the variety of content available on my profile, I've personally found it to be powerful in creating an opportunity for face to face meetings. It's certainly far more effective in engaging with targeted professionals than the random activity of large networking events.

One aspect that I've particularly enjoyed is the publisher platform. I've found writing articles to be an excellent manner of communicating directly with my target audience on a variety of subjects that I believe may benefit them. If you want to demonstrate your expertise and have it in a professional format that is easily shared via a link in an email or across other social media platforms, then LinkedIn Publisher is the place to do it.

I'm probably not alone in the fact that I still haven't figured out what Google+ is trying to be. It doesn't have a distinct personality like LinkedIn or Twitter and it doesn't really do anything that other platforms haven't already covered. In fact, it's such a hybrid wallflower that I didn't even know I had a Google+ account until the beginning of the year. But since I started using it nine months ago, over 13,000 people have found me there. They came, they saw, they left. I don't know who they are or where they came from; they didn't comment, they didn't share.

Since I find it to be the least interactive of all the social media platforms I utilize, I really have no metrics to gauge it's effectiveness or impact. My guess is that it won't be here 3 years from now, at least not in it's current form. I am a huge fan of Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calender and Google Apps, but at the end of the day, Google+ is an attractive looking but utterly tasteless morsel in the social media scheme of things.

Aside from cat videos and baby pictures, I have little personal use for Facebook. And even less so from a professional standpoint. My business simply isn't conducive to the format, although there is benefit to sharing what I do with friends and family. It just isn't a good fit for my business brokerage and I doubt many (if any) clients will ever directly find me on there. I spend even less time on Facebook than I do with Google+, and that's just long enough to post an article or link and close the window.

But for some small businesses, it's an excellent tool. One marketing trick I've seen used to great success is having customers 'Like' your page and 'Check In' when they make a purchase. If you have a retail business or service business like a hair salon, try this out. Your customers will be marketing you to their entire personal network and all you have to do is give them a small discount on their current or a future purchase.

Of all the social media in all of the world, I don't think there's anything that appears as useless on the surface to the uninitiated as Twitter. It really was a mystery to me. Perhaps I was initially put off by how it ruined my favourite funny childhood word. Then I assumed it was just another format for people to share what they had for lunch (in 140 characters or less).

But now that I'm using it on a semi-regular basis, the wonderful personality of the Twitterverse has emerged from the ether. It has a very interesting etiquette that is unique to the platform and I find it to be the most informal and enjoyable of all the social media outlets. It combines news, business, entertainment and mixes it all together into a giant do-it-yourself bowl of gumbo.

You never know where things are going to end up on the Internet in general, and nowhere is that statement more true than with Twitter. Anything can happen, and often does. You can engage with people directly that you couldn't get within 50 feet of on the street. I sent a Tweet to one of my favourite authors (Bill Burg) and was very excited to receive a gracious reply.

Are you sick of the word Tweet yet? Then you aren't having enough fun with it. Even Grumpy Cat is having a blast with Twitter, so there's hope for you yet.

If you're a consultant or have some level of professional expertise in a specialized field, then you should be blogging. It is a very powerful tool to create and share distinct information that your potential clients need. If you want to cast yourself as an expert in your field, writing articles for your blog is an excellent place to do it. You can then launch that same material all over the Internet via your other social media channels. We also invite guest bloggers to contribute to our blog, which our readers definitely appreciate. Our little blog gets over 10,000 views a month, so it's an excellent format to engage regularly with our very targeted audience.

What's my point with all of this? That it isn't hard to figure out ways of networking and promoting yourself via social media, because the sheer variety of it means there's something for everyone. And it doesn't take very long to get the hang of it to the point where you can be operating at the level of the so-called networking pros. Just keep your end goal in mind, take some of it seriously and remember to explore, experiment, educate, evolve and experience.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this article, please share it on your SOCIAL MEDIA and give a thumbs up.

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Ryan Jorden is the Managing Partner with VR Business Brokers in Calgary, Alberta, where he specializes in valuating and facilitating the sale of privately held businesses. Reach him confidentially at [email protected] or visit our website and blog to learn more. We can also connect on Twitter. 

(Photo credit: Michelle Atagana)

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