Social Media: Why Bother? Part 1

Social Media: Why Bother?

We are having a debate here at the University of Chichester. The title is Social Media: Why Bother?

There are 60 people booked to attend.

There is a panel with three people on it, so we can draw from their opinions, research and thoughts.

I’m in the audience. I’m keen on Social Media. I have run small businesses that have tinkled with Social Media. I saw no return on my investment.

Why?

Perhaps I wasn’t tracking it well. Perhaps my messages weren’t engaging with the people that were listening to my social media channels. Perhaps that was my problem. They were listening. They weren’t engaging. They certainly weren’t buying.

The return on investment from my social media efforts was a big fat ZERO. So why did I bother? I’ve been reading up a little on this and it would seem, everyone wants you to use social media if you are in business. Especailly ‘social media’ businesses. Of course they do. They want your business.

I bothered because I like tech. I bothered because I think I’m social. I bothered because I thought stuff was interesting and cool and I wanted to share it. I’m guessing other people didn’t. I wanted people to share what I was sharing as a mark of me being cool and knowledgable. I wanted confirmation from the people who I thought were listening that I was a great person and that I had great stuff to tell them.

I became disillusioned. I stopped posting because it wasn’t doing anything. The only followers I was picking up were in places like India and Thailand. Not really my customer segments. I became despondent with it. It wasn’t getting updated. I was wasn’t interacting. Then I get a question via social media. I missed it. I may have missed the one sale that was going to happen via social media.

Perhaps I should have spent my time on something more meaningful that may have generated more sales. The business was an e-commerce one, most of my sales came through buying on line advertising and Google search results.

If I analysed where I spent my time it was more on Social Media. Less on where my sales were coming from.

My conclusion in the debate (before it has even happened), is, don’t waste valuable time on Social Media unless you can be sure it drives sales. Look carefully at your analysis of ALL your marketing channels and what is driving sales. Focus on that instead.

If word of mouth generates more sales, then what can you do to generate more word of mouth?

If face to face meetings generate more sales, then what can you do to generate more meetings?

If Google organic search generates more sales, then what can you do to generate better search rankings?

If buying online advertising generates more sales, then spend your time focussing on this.

Remember this old adage: “if you don’t have sales, you don’t have a business”

Right, back to Twitter…. Oops.