The Social Trojan: Downfall of a Generation

Reflecting on our journey with LinkedIn and Social Selling, it has become shockingly clear that Social Media is responsible for the negative disruption and perhaps downfall of a generation of small businesses.

I'm not some anti-'social' dinosaur, not anymore. Indeed LinkedIn can be credited with the growth of our education and agency businesses from 10k to over ￡50k monthly revenue during the COVID years, and some considerable orders for various of my other ventures.

I'm a businessman who is fearful for my peers.

Wind the clock back 10 years. LinkedIn was presenting a new kind of social opportunity. Business users were starting to adopt the idea that they could connect with their IDEAL target market in a way that other platforms had not previously allowed.

Taking advantage of specific filters for industry, profiles designed to describe roles, skills, organisations, and search that allowed them to identify and directly connect with people that would previously have taken considerable effort to find.

True business-oriented social prospecting was being born.

At that time, the choice of people offering each service in their local market was relatively small. Even 5 or so years ago when Pipeline 44 was founded, you could count on two hands the number of established LinkedIn specialists, life coaches, or specialist consultants on the platform.

Customers had ready access to services that perceptively solved their problems. The organic reach and optimistic intrigue about business-focused social content meant that large numbers of connections would see, read and comment on posts. Piling on the credibility.

Finding new customers was pretty easy. A couple of messages and a post or two. Start a conversation and get them on the phone. The post-2008 recession years were looking pretty good.

While organic reach was high, and visible competition low, LinkedIn acted as a relatively easy end-to-end sales solution for the small business user. Credibility through rarity was the norm and the concept of finding solutions on LinkedIn was novel and exciting. People spent their money. Businesses made sales.

The buzz hid what for me, is a much darker side to the evolution of business social.

I think it's fair to say that the majority of small business owners are always looking for easy solutions to their problems. Me included. We all strive to build and sustain our companies by expending as few resources as possible.

This new way to find opportunity was naturally adopted by swathes of organisations. Many thousands of startups were even born with the promise of business through simplified digital marketing.

The platform progressed, its membership soared and those previously lucky few have gradually become part of an unimaginably large and now saturated membership.

As a result, the number of messages being sent has increased exponentially. What were welcome introductions are today irritating interruptions.

In the last few weeks, LinkedIn has made unknown changes that have placed previously invisible paid ads 1 in every 3 posts on some feeds. Organic impressions are a fraction of what they were even two months ago.

Sending a couple of messages and posting some content is no longer a viable way to sustain business.

You have no control over what happens on LinkedIn.

Repeat. You have no control over who sees what or when. Algorithms change and you have no sustainable way to play them.

I don't criticise LinkedIn for any of this. Every social media platform has followed very similar patterns throughout their lifecycles. This is simply a predictable and intended evolution. If we could all have such well-defined and profitable business models!

The tragedy?

Most business people haven't thought about it.

The good days have been a distraction from sound business practice. Without the platform, businesses would have had to spend much more time learning, planning, and strategising to win and sustain orders. Some would not have started at all and many more would have failed much earlier.

Where's the evidence? Anecdotally, our teams work with 100s of businesses in Digital Marketing and sustaining Social Pipeline every year. Of those we have onboarded in the past 12 months, we've seen maybe one effective end-to-end marketing strategy.

Fewer than 1%.

Outside of our experience, I implore you to look hard at your own operation. If you're trying to get business on LinkedIn and it isn't delivering consistent results - that is predictable orders month in, month out, with actionable data for scaling - it isn't the platform's fault. Either your product and/or message aren't suitable, or you don't have a suitable marketing strategy with a rigorously measured and executed process, to take LinkedIn traffic on a journey to your solution. In many cases, it'll be both.

If you're one of the few for whom post, prospect, and hope is working consistently, you are succeeding despite yourselves. Perhaps your service can be demonstrated extremely credibly in video, or you're so well known in your industry that everyone wants to work with you. Either way, stop resting on easy success - you are leaving business on the table and it won't last.

The good news?

It's never too late to utilise these platforms properly, design and implement marketing strategy, and an effective Social pipeline. it's actually pretty simple.

LinkedIn today is a traffic source. It always was. Again no criticism - it is by far the most effective, targeted and consistent digital traffic source available to businesses in the world.

Build a process around it. Think as though the platform will disappear tomorrow. Take your target market on a journey of touchpoints and hold their hands all the way. Figure out how you can deliver your credibility in a way that you can control. LinkedIn will become one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal.

And you'll sleep better at night.

We are working in decisive and formative times. Your actions today will determine the future of your businesses, and your lives.

#socialselling #startups #smallbusiness #scaleyourbusiness #digitalamarketing #socialpipeline #pipeline44