Social media is everything nowadays. At least, that’s what we’ve been led to believe. But what if I told you you DON’T need to be as engagaged 24/7 to remain relevant? Of course, this post is not meant to appeal to everyone, but perhaps it rings true for far many more of you than you previously thought. Here’s the nitty gritty, social media can be a time suck, and you may not be earning as much business from it as you’d like to think.
I recently read an article titled Why I killed my social media accounts (+ why you may want to too…and what to do instead), and I emphatically recommend you read it too. In the article, the very talented Linda Formichelli, gives a few distinct and powerful examples of how you may be investing unecessary time keeping up with the social media Joneses.
Of course, every industry is a bit different, and your business social media presence may differ from your personal one. But note, how much time and effort are you investing into social media and how much of your business and pageviews are you getting from it? Are you gaining subscribers, leads, sales? If you’re tracking where your site traffic is coming from (you should be!) you can better pinpoint where your business should concentrate its marketing effort. Is the return of investment worth the amount of time you dedicate to your tweeting, pinning, instagraming, etc.? If it isn’t, and you’ve optimized not only which social media media you use, but how and when you use it, you may be better served to ditch the amount of time/attention you give said social media and move on to what DOES work.
Speaking from experience, as a business owner of a profitable online woodworking gift shop, most of our sales comes through online marketing. Whether someone viewed a pinned post on Pinterest, or linked a picture on a Facebook group, traffic is funneled back to our own website and (hopefully) leads to a sale. We monitor our social media accounts daily, and we try to engage our audience in an expeditious manner. So what does that mean? We’re always connected – because that’s where a majority of our business is.
So the questions you have to ask yourself are:
- Where is my business coming from?
- Where is my audience?
- How much time/resources am I spending on Social Media?
- What do I want to gain from Social Media, and how do I measure it?
Similar to the old saying “If You Cant Measure it, You Can’t Manage It”, I’d like to offer:
If you can’t define it, you can’t measure it, and consequently, you can’t manage it
Arguably the toughest part of any marketing strategy or business plan is defining who your niche’, your target market, your perfect customer. As with many intangibles and variables, defining what you want to get out of something (in this case, a social media presence) is critical to ensure you can measure failure vs. success.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Have you ditched social media in one form or another? How has that worked out for you and your business? What additional tips do you have to offer? Comment below, shoot me an email or (if you haven’t ditched them yet) hit me up on social media! =)
~Viva