CHAPTER 17
The Value and Pitfalls of Social Media
If you listen to the news, you would believe social media sites are taking over the world. It’s inescapable, and let’s admit, we’ve all watched more than one cat video or “stupid stunt gone bad” video. I continue to be amazed at the millions of views such things garner in just a few days. The wide number of ways people use social media sites to earn a living also amazes me. All of this leaves me wondering what makes some things wildly successful on the Internet, while the vast majority of content fades away, never to be seen again? Let me answer the question by asking two more questions:
Would you build a home on land you didn’t own?
Would you build a home on land you rented, but the landlord could change the agreement terms at any time?
What are your answers? I suspect you would say “no” to both those questions. There is no way I would ever build a house on land I didn’t own or on land where the terms of the agreement could change at any moment. I doubt you would, either. Yet, this is exactly what people do when they say they’re going all-in on using social media sites to develop leads and customers.
Anyone who has been in the social media space for some time has seen how the owners of these sites can and will change the rules. What makes it frustrating is they tend to not be courteous landlords who let you know of changes in advance so you can prepare. Facebook is a great example. For years I knew a number of successful salespeople, particularly in the B2C area, who at no cost generated huge traffic on their Facebook business pages. They could reliably post articles, pictures, or other snippets of information, and within a few minutes of blasting it out, they would begin getting “likes” and comments. These would soon translate into leads and sales. It was a wonderful world for these salespeople, as they were able to consistently get sales by simply repeating the process over and over again.
Then, without any notice, Facebook’s rules changed and the number of people who would receive updates dramatically reduced. It didn’t take long for pain to set in, and companies realized if they wanted more visibility on Facebook, they would need to pay for advertising. Did we not recognize that Facebook would be expected to grow its revenue when it became a publicly traded company? Facebook changed the rules, and because we were playing at their tables, we would now have to ante up—and ante up big.
A huge factor we can never forget is what a social media site allows us to do today may not be there tomorrow, regardless of what we might think or how loudly we stomp our feet when they change the rules. Am I saying social media sites are not where we should spend our time? No, social media sites can be a great prospecting tool. But where I deviate from most people is I believe social media sites are just one prospecting tool. They’re not the only prospecting tool.
You may choose to not use social media sites to prospect, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore them. The title of this book is High-Profit Prospecting, and my intention is to show you how to find better prospects who, in turn, will be better customers for you. If you want better customers, you need to be a better salesperson. That means being better than your competitor at using every avenue possible to increase confidence in the minds of prospects.
Social media sites (and for that matter, the entire Internet) allow us to create a digital trail that anyone can access 24/7. It is important to realize your profile and activity on social media sites is picked up by search engines, and for most people these sites will pop up the highest in an online search of your name. This is the easiest way for you to create more confidence with your customers and prospects, and even generate leads. A key premise we can’t forget is the greater the level of confidence the customer has in us, the greater probability we have of closing a profitable sale.
Why Do You Think It’s Called “Social”?
The biggest challenge with social media sites is they’re too heavy on the “social,” and as a result, they can wind up becoming a giant time suck. The amount of time people can spend on them makes me sick. Social media sites are nothing more than a virtual 24/7 networking event. Have you attended networking events in your community put on by a local organization or business group? In the early days of my consulting business, I attended quite a few, thinking they would be a great way to develop local business. Wrong! What I quickly found was the crowds at these events always tended to include the same people. Not only were they the same people, but they also came from the same professions: insurance, financial planning, real estate, accounting, and banking.
The reason I relate social media with live networking events is because many times the audience winds up being similar from event to event. Repetition is certainly a good thing, as I see it as one of the key factors to a prospecting program’s success. The problem is it takes too much time to create a big enough presence on social media sites to make a difference. Combine this with how long it can take prospects to see your value, and it becomes clear that too much investment in the process can become a misuse of your time.
I’m sure there are plenty of people who will disagree strongly with my views, but my big concern is time. The only asset that is limited in business is time, specifically your time. Spending hours a day on social media sites might give you a rush when seeing the number of likes, followers, and connections, but these have little value until you covert them into customers. One of the worst things we can believe is that all of our social media connections are leads waiting to be converted to prospects, and ultimately customers. I’m an optimist and I always want to see the upside, but let’s get back to reality and accept the fact that a lot of our connections have zero potential.
Recently, I had a telephone conversation with a business owner who I know through work we both did several years ago with a trade association. The association changed management and chose to embrace social media one hundred percent as the way to grow membership and create additional revenue streams. I remember hearing about the group making the move when it first happened, and I thought to myself how the plan was most likely going to end poorly.
In my conversation with this business owner, he confirmed the notion I had. The association had burned through their reserves, all the while achieving none of the goals they had set forth to accomplish. If you were to have monitored their social media presence, you would have thought they were succeeding. They were putting out a lot of great content, and from all appearances, they were doing social media right. It might have had the appearance of being right, but it was wrong because they couldn’t convert the awareness into revenue. You can’t eat clicks and likes!
You Mean I Can’t Spend All Day on Social Media?
Social media sites are like a giant suction machine. They can suck you in ever so slowly, and before you know it you’ve spent hours upon hours online. Argue with me all you want that what you’re doing is prospecting or at least gathering leads, and I’ll tell you that what you’re doing is keeping yourself busy. But are you busy doing the right stuff? The question I like to ask salespeople is, “If you had zero income and you needed to close a sale quickly to put food on your table, in what activity would you invest your time?”
Yes, You Do Need a Strategy
Ask yourself, “Do I have a social media strategy?” The majority of salespeople do not have one, and I’ve found even those who do typically have nothing more than a vague plan at best. One of the worst things we can do is assume that how we use social media in our personal lives is how we should use it in our professional lives. Many people place too much emphasis on Facebook or Instagram and too little on LinkedIn, especially those in B2C.
Now comes a popular question: “Do I need to spend money to execute my social media plan?” The answer is both “yes” and “no.” You don’t need to spend anything to develop and execute a social media plan as one of your prospecting tools. The only thing I spend money on is buying a higher level of LinkedIn service that allows me to see for longer periods of time who has viewed my profile and to send out more messages. Even though I like these advantages, I can’t say it’s a game changer I can’t live without. The reason I share this is because too many salespeople jump into buying every social media service and program they can. I find these programs are a lot like physical fitness equipment. A lot of people buy it, but few people actually use it.
Here’s the argument for buying upgraded services and other programs: if you’re looking to create awareness and scale significantly, then using programs and buying ad placement certainly is the right way to go. I am not, however, going to elaborate on specific products and services in this book because there are so many and they are constantly changing. Be cautious and do your research. I will, however, recommend Jay Baer at www.jaybaer.com/, because I think he does an excellent job reviewing and commenting upon different social media tools and statistics. His expertise is spot on and always current.
Failing to take the time to respond thoughtfully to the following questions about your social media strategy is only going to create more problems for you. It’s easy to think because you know what other people have done to find success that all you need to do is copy them. That’s insanity. As much as we want to think we can mirror what another person has done or is doing, the Internet is simply too brutal to allow two people to have the same results.
From my own experience, I can tell it is impossible to replicate someone else’s plan. I know, because I’ve tried—not once, not twice, but multiple times, and each time the only thing that happened was I wasted too much time and resources. And other people have mirrored my successes, only to find failure. The Internet changes every day, and that’s why whatever you do, it must be done with skepticism. Know the rules of the game could change at any time. Remember my comment at the start of this about building a home on land you don’t own? Enough said. Let’s look deeper at the questions.
Defining Your Social Media Strategy
Why do I want to use social media sites?
Am I looking to generate leads or stay in touch with current customers?
How much of my own time and effort is it going to take to build and monitor my own personal presence and profile?
Does what I sell require the marketplace to become educated, or are people already familiar with what I sell?
What does my personal profile currently say about me on social media?
Are there changes I need to make to how I currently use social media?
Do I have connections and relationships on social media that could compromise my ability to use social media as a business tool?
Do I own my name? Are there others on the Internet with the same name as me, and is what they’re doing putting me at risk?
What is my company’s policy regarding social media? What can I do?
How firm are the policies, and is there someone I need to discuss this with?
What are others in the company in my position doing with social media?
What resources are already available to me from my own website or my company’s website that I can leverage?
What items on my company’s website can I use to my advantage on social media?
Does my company have social media pages already that I should leverage?
What is the timeline I’m working under for building my presence on social media?
How long am I willing to wait until I see a payout from my efforts? (Typically, whatever you feel is the time it will take, be prepared for it to take two or three times as long.)
What is my plan for getting leads and how will I respond to them?
Will I respond to leads via the social media site, or will I attempt to connect with them via email or telephone?
How will I enter responses into my CRM system to ensure proper follow-up?
What sites are my prospects and customers most likely using?
(Limit the number of social media sites you are on. It’s better to have a strong presence on one site than barely exist on three.)
How much effort is it going to take to create a strong enough presence on the site?
Can I do this during my non-selling hours on weekends and evenings?
Are there other activities I will need to remove from my calendar to have enough time to do social media right?
What are the tools I can use to help me automate my social media work?
Where can I find the right tools, and what is it going to take to get them functioning properly?
Do I have a way to accurately measure the return on investment from my social media efforts?
Am I segmenting leads effectively to know how I get them?
Do I have a way to record in my CRM system leads I get through social media?
What legal parameters do I need to consider due to the profession or industry I’m in?
Are there restrictions with how I set up my profile and what I can say?
Are there restrictions about what I can do and with whom I can interact?
Is there a better use of my time?
What other activities am I not spending enough time on now that with additional time could help me be more productive with prospecting?
How is social media used currently in my industry?
Who uses it well and why do I think that? What’s my proof?
Is my industry ahead or behind the social media curve and why?
Do not rush answering these questions. The time you take answering them will pay out immensely by saving you time on social media.
It’s a Slippery Slope
Answering the “how” and “when” can be a slippery slope. I remember far too well the first time this discussion came up. I was sitting in a breakout session in 2004 at the National Speakers Association annual conference, discussing social media and its role in business. The debate was lively! In the room were more than one hundred people focused on both B2B and B2C markets. People were shocked—and I’ll put myself in that group—when other people said you needed to spend fifteen minutes a day on social media sites. To me, fifteen minutes was fourteen minutes too long. Fast-forward to today, and the going notion would be fifteen minutes is too little time. Many people might say something like a minimum of ninety minutes each day should be the norm, which to me is way too much! All this leads me to wonder what the norm will be in five years.
I’m not sharing this to say you need to spend more time on social media. No, I’m a huge proponent of spending as little time as possible on social media. By now you’ve come to sense that I do not see social media as being the perfect solution. It’s one tool for prospecting; it is by no means the primary tool. Your time spent on social media must be time you would not spend on more productive prospecting activities!
Don’t tell me how the time you spend on social media is the most effective way to prospect. I’m not buying it, and I’m pushing back. Yes, you can prospect on social media (I’ve devoted the next chapter exclusively to this topic), but I’m pushing back for two reasons. First, all social media sites are full of distractions that will pull you away from more productive work. Second, most social media activity is not in the moment. You’re not posting things on social media and simultaneously having a discussion with a lead or prospect. Sure, there are exceptions, but by and large people do not live on social media sites waiting for you to connect with them.
The amount of time you spend on social media should start at one hour per week, and any increase beyond that should be earned. I’m serious about this—if you don’t place firm limits, I guarantee you will suffer from what I like to call “social media creep.” This is the tendency to spend just a few more minutes each day or each week on the sites, not realizing the bulk of time it’s taking from your other activities.
I advocate breaking the hour into three twenty-minute segments each week: two on weeknights and the third sometime during the weekend. Breaking up your one hour over three occasions per week will give you more than enough time to post, comment, share, and connect. What it won’t do is give you enough time to wander around watching stupid cat videos! Unless you’re in the cat market, watching cat videos is not going to put food on your table.
Caution! What You Post Will Be Used Against You
Regarding what to post, the answer is, “Be wise!” It never ceases to amaze me how people will post photos with funny captions that also are quite insulting. Posting a comment or a picture of a city you happen to be in for a business trip and saying how boring it is might seem amusing to people in your hometown, but it’s not going to win you any friends with customers or prospects in the city you’re visiting. Don’t believe you can keep your Facebook page or your Instagram account separate from business. Sorry, but that idea died with dial-up.
You can position your social media accounts to do different things. Let me break down for you how I use social media accounts. First, remember that my business is about helping companies and salespeople find and retain better customers to allow them to close more deals at higher prices. I do this primarily through my speaking and writing, along with training and consulting. My target audience is B2B companies and associations, and my buyers are mid-level and higher. As you can imagine, my number one social media site is LinkedIn. The other sites I use are Twitter and Facebook. Yes, I have accounts on YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram, but I don’t do a lot with them, simply because of the limited return on investment for my time.
If you’re in B2C, your primary sites may very well be Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. A risk is stereotyping sites. Many view Pinterest as a site primarily for fashion, design, food, and crafts. Don’t tell that to the Harvard Business Review; it has a huge presence on Pinterest. They use the site to develop new readers and reach people who are not familiar with their product.
It’s impossible to lay out in a single book everything you should do on each social media site—let alone a single chapter. I’ll show you what you can do on a few select sites to help you generate leads. In the next chapter, I’ll discuss in more depth some social media prospecting strategies. A big note of caution: never allow social media sites to push updates and notifications to your email. The last thing you want is updates and alerts taking over your inbox, and let’s be real, most of these messages are unnecessary.
Build your personal profile, and a separate company profile page if you have your own company. The best way to build your profile is by following the model of other experts in your field. I have several peers whose profiles I look at every six months to make sure what I’m doing is fresh and relevant. I also take note of the groups they belong to. I’m not looking to copy verbatim what they do, but I use it as a way of judging the value of what I’m doing. (Go ahead and check out my LinkedIn profile at www.linkedin.com/in/markhunter/.)
Having as robust a profile as possible is essential, because most people don’t realize LinkedIn is essentially a giant search engine. Have you ever wondered why certain people have viewed your profile? Chances are it’s because your name came up in a LinkedIn search—or broader than that, a Google or Bing search. LinkedIn has established itself with enough credibility on the Internet that searches involving a person’s name will many times return their LinkedIn profile page as one of the top search items.
Groups are a key part of your LinkedIn profile, and I believe in joining as many groups as possible. Some people say that doesn’t make sense, and my argument is I need to have as big a web presence as possible. Join groups that meet the following criteria:
Trade or industry groups where prospects are likely to be members
Local business or trade groups
Academic groups representing schools you attended or with which you have connections
Peer groups consisting of people from whom you can learn
If you limit the connections you accept, you’ll never be able to maximize LinkedIn to gain prospects. The key with LinkedIn (as with every other social media site) is to build awareness, and that means having as many people in your network as possible. The more people who are connected with you means the more people who will be able to see your full profile and your updates and ultimately provide you with more opportunities to generate leads. Kurt Shaver, LinkedIn sales expert and creator of the Social Selling Boot Camp, summed it up well when he noted, “LinkedIn, with all of its sharing capabilities, allows each salesperson to be a mini-marketer to attract prospects.” (You can learn more from Kurt at www.thesalesfoundry.com/ and, of course, on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/kurtshaver/.)
Yes, there are some connections you should reject. Although each person needs to define their own criteria, the criteria I use is to decline any invitation that does not have a profile picture, has bad grammar in the title, or clearly is a person with less than honorable intentions. Go ahead and follow old school rules of connecting only with people you’ve met, and your competitors will thank you for making it that much easier for them. Your total time reviewing and accepting connections should be no more than five minutes per week.
Posting and commenting on content is critical. My view is to keep things simple. Personally, I repost on LinkedIn articles I write on my company website. Additionally, I will push to LinkedIn a key article I might have seen on a news site that I believe those who follow me will find of value. Total time to do this is maybe ten minutes per week. Posting content is critical because it allows others to get to know you and what you’re thinking. You may not have company blog posts you can push to LinkedIn, but you can send several key news articles each week.
The majority of my LinkedIn time each week is responding to people who comment on things I’ve posted or making quick comments on other things I feel are worthy. This activity takes at most twenty minutes per week. Thanking people and making comments builds community and, as I’ll explain more in the next chapter, it has helped me generate significant business opportunities.
The approach I take with LinkedIn is the same approach I use with my Facebook homepage and my business page. The same rules also apply to connections, although I’m a little tighter on my personal page, where I will occasionally post pictures of my family. Due to the number of business connections I have on Facebook, I also will post business content. Connecting with business associates, including customers, on Facebook is an excellent way to stay in touch and for you to know what is going on in their lives. No, this isn’t creepy. I’m not forcing a connection on anyone, but what I’ve found is connecting with business associates and customers has allowed us to know each other better, which has in turn strengthened our business relationships.
I spend a total of five minutes on Facebook each week for business. Notice I say each week “for business,” because I consider the majority of my other time on Facebook as personal time, which is away from business.
Twitter is the social media site that confuses most people. Unless you’re in an industry that places value on Twitter or are in a group of people that use it, I think it is wise to tread cautiously. Because it has a high volume of short, instantaneous posts, it can really pull you in—and before long, you have wasted an hour of selling time.
Tech, startups, and many consumer companies use Twitter extensively, but I know many other industries where Twitter is not relevant. As aggressively as some sectors use it, other sectors ignore it. This is why I can’t stand it when people proclaim how powerful it is as a business tool. It is powerful if you play in an industry where it is used. I’ve gained several nice pieces of business from Twitter, but it has all been in either the tech sector or a startup. As with other sites, the key to Twitter is building your profile to represent yourself in the best way possible. One of the best ways to do this is by seeing what your peers are doing.
Do not get sucked into the Twitter time machine. Check it twice a week. Using a tool such as Hootsuite, you can load one or two original Tweets, find a couple of Tweets you like and re-Tweet them, and be done with it until the next week. An easy way to find Tweets you can re-Tweet is to follow five people who you think are really smart and who Tweet good stuff. Take a minute to look at their Twitter streams, and you’ll easily find a couple of Tweets you like and can share.
Yes, you can go much deeper with how you leverage Twitter, but the word of caution I give is to make sure each minute of time you devote to Twitter is a minute that would not be better spent doing something else.
The Circus Continues
There are other social media sites I could list and discuss, but you get the point. It’s a circus trying to keep up. Don’t do anything unless it fits your target market and you can get a payback for your efforts—and that payback for your efforts can’t be in five or ten years. If you don’t start seeing results within six months, then you need to start modifying your plan. If after a year you’re still not seeing anything, then it’s time to take a deep breath and reexamine your strategy. Don’t completely ditch everything (as the Internet does continue to evolve, and what doesn’t work one month might work the next), but rethink where you allocate your resources. Finally, I put this just ahead of the chapter on how to prospect using social media for one simple reason. If you expect to be able to use social media to find prospects, you first have to have a platform from which to do it.