When I was a boy… (or I’ve been doing this for a long time).

It is nearly 15 years since I started coaching people on how to use LinkedIn (and other networks) to promote themselves and their businesses.

So much has changed…and yet so little has changed.

I joined LinkedIn in 2007 when it had “only” 9,000,000 members. In those days it was a VERY different place. It was basically a bunch of CVs online. Few people published content and there we little interaction…in fact the biggest challenge was finding people you knew to connect to. It was still, in its most basic form, a good thing though because it had replaces Plaxo (anyone remember that) which was like a digital Rolodex (anyone remember those) where people could update their details so your address book would always be up to date - great idea.

LinkedIn didn’t (and still doesn’t officially) like people connecting to others that they don’t know so the size of your network was often hampered by the fact that all the people you knew who were on it were connections already… it wasn’t like you could search for “sales director” and get anything meaningful back…so you were basically stuck in this loop of having to invite people to join LinkedIn to actually get anywhere.

Anyway, pretty soon I realised that each profile was sort of like a website for yourself and changing how you spoke about yourself would potentially make you more attractive to prospects.

The functionality and, if I’m brutally honest, my thinking hampered the value I could get from it to begin with. But gradually more people started to join and the functionality of the network improved as more features were trialled and then added or not. More networks sprung up Facebook (2004), YouTube (2004), Reddit (2005), Twitter (2007), Instagram (2010), Pinterest (2010), Vine (2012)… the list goes on and on. Some survive, some are acquired, some die, but the global population of people on social networks continues to grow every year.

Where once you didn’t “need” to be on a social network, now you are increasingly forced to be there:

Don’t have LinkedIn profile? You won’t get that dream job.

Don’t have a Facebook profile? You won’t know about the next party you should go to.

Don’t have Twitter? You will have no idea what has caused the traffic jam you find yourself in.

Yes, of course you can exist without being on these networks but it just makes everything a little more difficult.

I saw this some years ago and actually started a business to do exactly this because it was clear to me where the market was heading and that you were either going to watch the change happen…or be part of the change.

Since my earliest days of working in this environment I have seen so many changes. Where once it was hard to find someone who is on social media, now it’s hard to fond someone who isn’t. As more people join social networks the gravitational pull of the network increases because there is yet more reason for people to join

Now, I think it is fair to say that every deal, purchase decision and brand relationship is shaped in part by social media.

Where there were just a few million, now there are 4,650,000,000 people active on social media.

Where these were once just address books and newsletters for people now they are communities where people meet and forge meaningful personal and commercial relationships. People spend a global average of 2 1/2 hours ever day on social media.

But, amid all this change, some things haven’t changed.

Social networks always have been and always will be about people. As Brian Solis said, (to be successful on social networks) “the challenge is one of psychology not technology.”

There are still many personal challenges though to be overcome.

We coach dozens of people every week and almost all of them experience a degree of fear at the idea of sharing their own thoughts (either in written or video form). This is simply not worth consideration. If you are able to have a conversation with someone and build a friendship in the real world you can do it on social media, you just need to be yourself rather than worrying about what you think I want you to be.

For many people they still see this as some “new fangled idea” that somehow isn’t relevant for their prospects and customers.?But with 80%+ of the population (in our key markets - and possibly yours too) that simply CANNT be the case.

And when even the oldest demographic of people use social media for work comms over half of the time we must be realistic that THIS is where the action is!

The other day I was talking to a client and they said that they recognised that marketing isn't working. That it isn't delivering the leads that it once did and that often the "leads" are not leads at all, they are not prospects that are itching for a conversation...they are in fact (possible) prospects who are a long way away from wanting to talk.

This is not because marketing can't work, it is because marketing (in its historical form)has become irrelevant in 2022. In the B2B space: Do you click banner ads? Do you watch video ads? Do you read cold emails? Do you answer cold calls? Everyone I speak to says no.

Furthermore they invariably say that a cold email results in an unsubscribe and a video ad makes people feel less affinity with a brand rather than more.

Social addresses all of these things (and more) but it desperately needs you to be human. Be yourself because it's the most attractive thing that you have. Nobody wants to hear about the fact that you say you are responsible for a 20% uplift in sales and a successful implementation of a new technology...and you know why they don't want to hear this? Because it isn't true (or they don't believe it's true).

Every company that we talk to. Every single one. ALL OF THEM tells us they have a pipeline issue.

Every company that we talk to. Every single one. ALL OF THEM tells us they have a pipeline issue. They tell us that their campaigns, events, telemarketing all fail to deliver against their expectation. They tell us that a website redesign gives them more analytics on people's behaviour when on their site but it doesn't give them more meetings. They tell us that the phone isn't ringing and they tell us that they are arriving too late at the table to be perceived as a partner or are able to help steer the project to something they believe will actually benefit their prospect. They tell us that none of this is working and frankly they are terrified. They know that putting s sticking plaster on this won't fix it. As the sales team if they are getting enough quality MQLs...they will tell you "no."

Don't think that I am saying that marketing can't work (because it can) but what I am definitely saying is that marketing ISN'T working for every business I have spoken to recently.

Marketing needs to re-invent itself. Marketing needs to look at results, not efficiency. Marketing needs to consider not "how many MQLs/SQLs have we delivered" but "how many times have we generated the sort of projects we actually need/want."

It needs to change. Now.

The solution to this challenge is already there, established and proven. It is based, as sales and business always have been, on building trust, credibility and relationships not on sending-out ever more costly brochures and trying to cross reference who has visited the website with who has been on a webinar.

At the end of the day, it's lovely when a company helps develop your thinking so you feel empowered to buy...but you will invariably buy from the person you like and trust the most and this is where businesses need to focus.