Social Media for Small Biznas | DT Business Strategies

It’s true. I mean hold on…I could have sworn I had one of those around here somewhere.

Oh yeah, I set up a Facebook business page a few years back. But I’ve never used it. I’m not even sure how to find it. And I think I misspelled my own name when setting it up.

Did I mention that Facebook is a GREAT source of business for me? Evidently my friends, all the hoopla about doing social media the “right” way is a little overrated.

I get emails (lots of em some days) with questions about social media. Here are a few sample questions I receive:

How do I get more “likes” on my Facebook page?
Should I start a Facebook business page? (ahem…)
What do you think about (insert the latest weird change Facebook is making here)?
Do you prefer Facebook or LinkedIn groups for finding new business leads?
What’s your take on G+?
You get the idea…etc, etc.

Interestingly, my favorite social platform of all (Twitter) is one I get the fewest inquiries on. Go figure 🙂 Anyway, you may have noticed I don’t talk too much about social media here. I’ve covered a few topics on occasion, but for the most part I’m pretty quiet about it. So what’s up with that?

Why I’m Not A Social Media Advocate

I just don’t have time to advocate social media. And I don’t see any purpose really. There are bazillions of consultants out there harping on every day about the value of social media, and the world doesn’t need another social media lackey talking about how social media is the way of the future, blah, blah, blah.

None of this means I’m AGAINST it. Not at all.

I use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all the time. I get business from social media. I’ve met good friends using these sites. I find social media pretty invaluable actually. It’s also fun.

But that’s not what this website is about. And it’s not what my business is about.

The focus here is getting high conversion results from your website. You know…the art of getting lots of leads. So that’s where my focus lies. This doesn’t mean that social media isn’t valuable, it just means that I focus where I’m able to provide the highest value.

Blogging And Email Rule

From day one I’ve pretty much focused on blogging and email. These are the tools of my trade. This doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to chop down a tree. This is just how I do it. And it’s what I teach clients how to do.

There’s a pretty high appeal to this approach, because to be honest…most people are pretty overloaded with info already. There’s all this pressure to use social media incessantly. The marketing world is filled to the brim with cats talking about how you need to be using every social media site out there, be everywhere all the time, etc. It’s pretty exhausting if you ask me. Not to mention the fact that it’s all bullshit.

Not only do you NOT need to be everywhere, all the time…you also can’t.

There’s not time to do everything all the time, silly 😉

And even if it were possible, 90% of it would be a waste of your time. Most of my clients are pretty relieved when I inform them that I’m not going to give them a bunch of rules about how they need to be on the internet all day long. I like cutting through all the B.S., so we can get right to the heart of things. What’s going to get RESULTS for your business?

My Two Weapons Of Choice

Blogging and email rule. These are the two tools I focus on. Since the late 90′s, this has been my focus and it’s served me well. Yeah, social media has blown up. And yeah…I use it. There’s a lot of value there. But you know what no one seems to recognize?

Even though Facebook has completely exploded and taken over the internet, guess what remains the internet’s NUMBER ONE most used platform for consuming and sharing information? That’s right…email. Good ol email.

You know how Facebook ads have tripled in price over the past few years? You know how Facebook changes their TOS and silently exploits their users personal information every time they get a chance? You know how Facebook regularly changes their platform, throwing everyone for a loop, so they have to completely relearn where everything is and how to use their website?

Email doesn’t do any of that crap. It’s simple and effective. I don’t know about you, but I really like stuff that’s simple and effective.

After all these years, email has quietly remained on top. And for good reason…it works. And blogging remains one of the most accessible and effective ways to show up in search engines and build a highly engaged, powerful email list.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So where do we go from here? If you want advice on social media, I’m always happy to give you my feedback on whatever I’m doing. Those of you who subscribe and talk with me know I respond to your questions. And I always love hearing from you and sharing what’s working for me.

I just don’t go in depth on social here, and if you have super technical questions, I’ll usually refer you to one of my friends who focuses on that.

For me and my clients here, I find a lot of value in simply focusing on what works best. Focus on blogging and email, because that’s where you can get the most substantive long term results. From there, use social as much as you can and have fun with it. Just don’t stress it. Life’s too short 😉

Questions? Then subscribe, and talk to me! That’s right…via email!

As a business owner, you want to spend your time in the most valuable places. It’s called leverage. It’s not a new concept, but it’s a very important one. So does social media for small business make sense? No. And…yes. Well dammit, it depends on what your goal is, so let’s get straight to it and settle the matter once and for all, shall we?

Btw…why the heck is there a picture of me right after this morning’s workout on this blog post? Makes no sense at all does it? Well here’s the deal…there’s this rule in the blogosphere that blog posts do better when they have a picture. And I’m busy. I don’t have time to search for some uber-fantastic stock photo right now. And to be honest I’d rather look at a pile of dog crap then look at another blog post with stock photography. And that’s not an exaggeration. My last blog post featured a picture of a pile of dog crap. Look it up!

Sooo, anyway. The PROBLEM with social media in a small business context is two-fold:

You can only talk to so many people one at a time. Bottom line, social doesn’t scale. It just doesn’t. You can try blasting all your friends with promotional stuff, in an effort to MAKE it scale. See how long you can do that before you’re banned from the network.
As a small business owner, it’s likely you don’t have a budget set aside for a fancy company to manage all your social stuff. And besides, outsourcing your social media presence may make sense for Pepsi, but not for you or me. Very few people are going to take you seriously if you can’t be bothered to even show up for yourself.

So what gives? Where’s the win-win here?

Social media for small business makes sense when…

…you realize that OTHER PEOPLE are what makes social media scale. Social is the ultimate platform for facilitating word of mouth. There are myriad other benefits which I’ll be discussing in other posts, no doubt. But when it comes to whether or not social media scales, remember that it DOES scale. It just won’t be YOU that makes it happen.

You showing up to the table means a lot more than you think it does. Just show up, meet and greet. Yeah, there’s a learning curve. But since when do awesome new tools have no learning curve? Yeah, it’ll take a minute to get a hang of how twitter works. It’s worth your time.

You can’t talk to every single person in your target audience. And you don’t need to. This is the paradigm shift a lot of small business owners are missing. Old advertising meant you try to reach everybody. These days, just reach out and engage with everyone you can.

Do right by a few, and you’ll earn true advocates for your brand. And then they tell others…word of mouth has a beautiful simplicity to it. It also has a beautiful free-ness to it. I can tell you first hand that it works.

And you don’t need to buy any dang $2k strategy courses or any guru-endorsed “social media secrets” products either. Unless I’m the one who publishes it. Just so you know:) Peace and have fun with it!