I was talking to the owner of a small company recently, when I used the term “Social Media” and saw the eyes roll skyward. She described it the same way most people would describe a game like Second Life (for those who know what it is). “Oh yeah,” she said, “That place where people without lives go to pretend that they have lives.”
Yes, she was bitter. And why not? It seems she had hired a consultant to build a presence for her on Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare, with the intention of increasing her business. They went ahead and, after three months she found herself with a successful Twitter account, a mildly popular Facebook account, a bit of extra traffic to her website and… and well that was about it. Monthly sales from social media never exceeded $0.00. She terminated the relationship and went on her way.
Smart woman.
Now one of two things happened here: she hired the wrong person, or used the wrong strategy. But that’s okay. We should all do that – try something, see if it works and, if it doesn’t work, try something else.
What astounds me is how many people still think that social media is a place to sell things.
That’s not to say it can’t be done. But if you’re going to spend five thousand dollars per month paying someone with the goal of making sales through social media, you better have a good profit margin. On the same token, if you’re spending three hours of your own time each day trying to generate sales through social media… again, you better have a good profit margin.
Do the Math
If your purpose for being on Twitter and Facebook is to get people to buy something, and you’re investing three hours each day in that, that’s the same as working two weeks at a full time job. (3x7x4=84) But let’s say you only spend an hour or so each day on social media. That’s still a full week’s work each month.
If I was going to hire you for a week, and promised you the work was going to be a lot of fun, how much would you ask for? Would you settle for fifty cents an hour?
Go Work at Starbucks
If you’re not making $10/hour in profit, you would be better off working at Starbucks. For several reasons.
1. You’ll be making more money than you do now.
2. You’ll meet people, and get to know them. You’ll make friends.
3. Your new friends will soon discover, through natural conversation, that you’re also a writer, or a photographer, or that you build macrame bird houses, or sell used cars, or whatever it is you do. Some of them will express interest and ask where they can buy one.
4. You’ll learn about the business of Starbucks. You’ll learn what’s behind their branding that keeps people coming back to pay exorbitant prices for coffee. You’ll learn what makes people smile, and what doesn’t.
5. Finally, you’ll learn something about marketing and being social at the same time. You might come to understand why Starbucks has never sent you a message asking you if you’d like to buy a coffee.
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{ 6 comments }
i really love this post.
i agree. social media is not the place to sell things.
it can be the place to assist in keeping a reputation solid (or, in conjunction, breaking it completely) in the example of companies having twitter accounts for things like customer service and contact. it can work with varying degrees of success for contests and announcements, etc. but in the long run, trying to sell things on social media is just annoying.
best example of using social media right that i can think off offhand is ThinkGeek.com. do they get sales from twitter? sure, probably. but people follow the account because of the content that they’re tweeting. it’s original, funny and keeps people wanting to follow them.
no hard selling, no spamming, and they interact with their followers on a really personal level. doing it right, for sure.
great post, David
Absolutely!!
Lori, you’ve actually touched upon the topic of my next blog post. This entry was originally going to be called “The Sour Side of Social Media” until I saw the Starbucks benefits had come to the popular number 5. To be followed by The Sweet Side…
I really enjoyed this post, David.
Good stuff & so true.
Thanks Melinda!
And remember: if you don’t have a life, there’s always Facebook®.
“You might come to understand why Starbucks has never sent you a message asking you if you’d like to buy a coffee.”
What a perfect way to end a blog post. Social networking sites were never meant to connect a business to new customers, only to bring current and past customers back into the fray. The same concept can be applied to people who use sites like Facebook to make new friends. I look at Facebook as a new-era phonebook. I’ll look up my friends information and see how he is doing but my conversations through Facebook will be limited to the place and time we meet up to create new memories, not drool over old ones. This is especially true when it comes to sales, eliciting an emotional response from a person over the internet is futile and traditional advertising is still much more cost-effective in getting a message to the world.
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