“Social media marketing” is a fad, a trend, and it’s raging with popularity right now. Will it last? Absolutely, but not as we know it today. Some of the buzz words will eventually be dropped and social media marketing will finally be seen for what it is – a very effective single prong of a multi-faceted way of sharing news about a person, product, or organization. But it still won’t reach my grandmother.
One of the dangers of social media involvement is becoming shallow and actually believing that if our profiles are pumped with greater numbers of fans, friends, and followers, we’re somehow effective marketers. But social media is far more than a connection collection.
Here’s the brutal truth – it’s super-easy to get people to follow you from a distance. There are plenty of “autopilot” programs that will build your accounts up with numbers. Great. But are you then an effective marketer? Hardly.
The step that lies beyond at-a-distance connections in which people merely click a button to follow you is engagement. There are people within my professional realm whom I’ve met multiple times for the first time. Each time I’m introduced to them, it’s obvious they don’t have a clue who I am. We’re not to the engagement level.
But sometimes connections deepen to the point where conversation takes place. Opportunities open up. Questions get asked. Partnerships are formed. Mutual collaboration and promotion happens. This is where we need to go with social media marketing. Getting traffic is easy today, given a little bit of time. Getting full-engaged connections is the challenge.
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Excellent analogy Brandon, too many times we are worried about numbers, are they doing anything for us?
I like to engage, too much sometimes, but I think it benefits me an multiple ways.
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You’re absolutely right!
Great post. At first I was concerned about followers and how many I have. Now I just don’t care. I would love to have over a thousand followers but, I want them to be quality followers not junk followers.
You can always have a ton of followers, but if they were added by bulk adding and they don’t care about you, then how does it help you? Thats the way I see it.
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Excellent thinking. You can have thousands of followers but will still have a certain group that are truly conversational anyway.
The hardest part of Twitter for me, is in engaging with them. I use IRC, AIM other chat programs where it was easy to talk with other users but Twitter is different.
I start a conversation, but it dies out in about 3 or 4 tweets.
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Hi Brandon,
Connection collection is a forced act because it’s motivated by making connections instead of making friends. People are who you’re doing business with, not numbers.
When I say friends I mean meeting people, building relationhips, and fostering trust.
Most people will never partner with someone who they aren’t friendly with. Friendliness can’t be forced. It comes from being you, being polite, and giving more than you take.
Connection collection is numbers driven, making friends is people driven. Focus on people before things.
I’ll keep your CC’s in mind with my social media endeavors. Thanks for sharing.
Ryan
Dead on, Ryan!
Interesting angle on social networking Brandon. I always come across people who hail it as the next internet marketing Messiah and this is the first time I read something that didn’t worship it. Social networking IS a great tool, but like any other tool, it’s useless if not used right.
Absolutely, and I think what you’ve said will be seen more and more to be true as 2010 goes on.
I care about what’s being said or the idea being shared. But I often don’t feel I have anything to offer or add so I just keep quiet. Of course that never gets me anywhere. I have to force myself to just jump in.
Hope you do more often – people need what you have to say! Thanks so much for opening up here!
Hey Brandon. That’s just the thing, isn’t it? People need to realize that social media is a tool, and just like any tool, it needs to be used in the right context. You need to sharpen it, as a tool, by getting more quality followers. However, if all you’re doing is sharpening the tool, and never using it, it’s useless and only good to look at.
I’m finally starting to get the hang of Twitter, and using it to direct more people who might be interested in my website to it. However, I don’t care how many followers I have. All I care about is that I’m finding new people to connect with.
Awesome approach, Trey. That’s the only way it can all have meaning.
i have tried social media marketing for getting our new products to be known on the market. it seems to work well specially if the audience is targeted .*