social media

> Trying to promote books on Facebook is as pointless as trying to buy
> groceries in a church. It’s just not there. Been there, done that. Don’t
> waste your time. You can’t put “likes” in the bank.

OMG, failure certainly speaks louder than success.

Promoting as in marketing books with the immediate goal of selling books on Facebook is not how it works. This is not a direct marketing method of communication.

That’s simply not the right way to approach the use of these instant publishing technologies.

Think about what results in people taking action and sharing on Facebook.

They read and/or see something short, sweet, and incredibly thought provoking. They may comment on it if it’s worthy of comment. And they may share it if it’s value packed and worthy of sharing with others.

It’s a filtration process. The cream rises to the top.

Notice that only the really good noteworthy and excellent ideas and knowledge are passed on from person to person.

If you are going to intentionally and strategically use these technologies, you simply have to focus on creating messages that are worth sharing.

The Bottom Line: Quality and excellence is what triggers action.

I harp on this all the time. If you learn how to turn people on first, THEN you get to leverage the technologies to repeat the message and trigger the actions you want to happen.

Leave a trail of tasty intellectual candy and people will keep on taking bites and eventually want to buy the whole bag.

You can leverage, maximize and benefit from posting good, positive, enthusiastic, entertaining, and educational information.

You can see your ideas shared if what you post is truly noteworthy ideas, writing, photos, and helpful support every chance you get with every post you make.

You cannot just believe you are good. You must BE REALLY GOOD. In fact, other people must find what you shared to be so good, they are driven to share that incredible goodness with others.

This is real time public relations. You want to learn how to do this with Facebook, and every other media (= prime media, Internet media and yes, now even social media) you try to get published in.

If you write something that is really, really good, people will share it. But you have to learn how to create and make use of micro marcom.

I’ve been studying and developing successful strategies that people utilize for micro-marcom (micro marketing communications) for a while now. The media are masters at this.

The best way to use FB and other technologies is to make use of little tiny galvanizing nuggets of clarity.

You see the tweets in their headlines on Google News, in newspaper headlines, and in chyrons on TV. They hint of stories that will be dramatic, personal, achievement in the face of adversity plus humor. You can see these headlines are designed to be Attention Grabbing Short Phrases, with a link to get you to sit through “the rest of the story”. Study these tweets and you’ll see they basically fall into one of the following seven categories:

Problem Identified
Problem Warning
Problem Solved
Someone in Trouble
Someone Saved or Rescued
Something Bad Happened
Something Good Happened

If you are going to use Facebook and all these media to promote, you will be most successful if you stay as personal as you are talking to your best friends and giving them your very, very best.

And you have to be quick about it. You can provide a link so they can get more goodness, and by golly it had better be as good as you said it is!

This way the image and impression you create is always helpful, educational, fun, entertaining, and worthwhile.

You can choose to create a personal brand that people always want to enjoy, and that results in people sharing what you offer, because it is simply so good.

When they like what you do, they will act to get more of you.

I read Guy Kawasaki’s very interesting article titled on Mashable “Launch Any Product Using Social Media”

Malcolm Gladwell triggered an avalanche of protests and howls from social media lovers for his analysis and commentary of social media in his article in the New Yorker magazine.

Here the links to the original October 4, 2010 article in The New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=1

This one goes to Mike Isaac’s tech column in Forbes

http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/2010/10/20/malcolm-gladwells-response-to-critics-of-his-social-media-piece/?boxes=techchannelblogs

Here is Twitter founder Biz Stone’s response in The Atlantic magazine.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/exclusive-biz-stone-on-twitter-and-activism/64772

And for my own history of rants and raves on the subject of social media and the difficulties of communicating meaningfully with people:

http://blog.directcontactpr.com/public/category/social-media

Hey, if it works for you, do it. If it doesn’t, do something else, and figure out what works.

One person on the publishing and promoting list at Yahoo posted the following message:

> “For any of those that are still questioning the importance and/or value of Social Media, check out the stats in this video…”

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Another person responded:

> “Those who pooh-pooh it are going to be the ones running to catch up.”

———

Social media rah rah sis boom bah.

Yes you may think it’s cool you can text with your iPod and splatter words all across other people’s machines everywhere.

But if you are in business, social media is more than just tweeting and facebooking. Social media Is not a quick fix for sales or marketing success. It’s not something that you can start tomorrow and go to the bank with a smile on your face in two weeks.

Social media is a specialized set of communications technologies and tools and tactics that can be used to improve how you communicate with people who use these technologies.

They can only help you generate profits if you use them to communicate meaningfully with your particular pool of interested clients, prospects and customers if this is how they communicate and make decisions.

Even getting followers is no guarantee that you will be able to turn them into raving fans and paying customers. You need to learn what to say and how to say it to get people interested and then you need to keep them interested.

The numbers of people using these technologies follows the adoption curves of all sorts of technologies that have spread into use before. This should not be a surprise at all. The past 50 years have seen all sorts of devices come and go. Phones, TV’s, faxes, computers, email, PDA’s, now iPods.

Now the online technologies have diversified. First there was the Internet, then there were news search engines, mailing lists, discussion groups, forums, blogs, audio, then satellite radio, video, and now social media technologies.

The ways to communicate with people continues to evolve and get smaller, faster, and easier to use.

But each technology has special communications requirements. Each requires training, practice and skill if you are going to use the technologies to persuade people to take action.

So the real question is can you use these technologies and use them well?

Regardless of the technology you use, you need to focus on your message. This is because your message is how you connect with the mind of the person who receives the message.

So what are you saying?

Do you have a purpose and a goal of triggering action?

Does your message trigger interest?

Are you giving value? Are you truly making a favorable impression? Are you making people laugh, cry, jump for joy or cringe? Do you achieve emotional and intellectual engagement?

Do your individual messages or even the suite of message you send over time result trigger people to action? Do you see sufficient numbers of people investigate you, your products and services? Do enough people make a decision to buy what you sell so that you can operate your company?

Where do people go after you persuade them to take a step your direction? Do your landing pages result in favorable response? Do you see sufficient conversion to sales?

Then when you finally get a customer, do you really deliver something of value? Is your product and service and performance of sufficient quality to achieve sales and positive reviews? Will the personal satisfaction people experience result in them spreading the word for you?

You have to have something worthwhile to offer in the first place.

Social media is a suite of tools that you can use *if* you take the time and put in the energy to develop the relationships with the people on the other end of the messages. You need to think out how all the tools you use interact to develop interest, satisfy needs, build credibility and trust.

And sell product.

Would you believe, that to date, the statistics and studies continue to show that base level income and profits in most companies continues to be derived from the old fashioned conventional methods of communicating and marketing?

The social media is an expense that comes as an addition to all the alternative technologies that are available for people to use. It takes money, time, skill, and expertise to operate these like any other of the technologies businesses use. Which technologies and which communications tactics and systems produce the income and profits that allow a company to survive and thrive have to be developed, determined and managed.

But no matter what technologies you use to communicate with your target audience, the message is perhaps the most crucial decision you can make.

The good old person to person “How can I help you?” is about the best place to start.

I wrote a few more posts about the ROI of Twitter a few months ago. If you’re interested, you can find them at my blog – here’s the link on the tag social marketing:

http://blog.directcontactpr.com/public/category/social-marketing

Why does social media marketing suck and what can you do about it?

Interesting Article at the Kansas City Examiner titled Social Media Marketing Sucks… If You Do It Wrong by Dustin Riedisel

My comments:

Social media are a special type of communication technology and they too, like all other communication technologies (email fax, street mail and even Tweets), have special requirements.

The goal is to have a meaningful communication with a real person on the receiving end. The message is what matters. The real value to the recipient is what matters. You can’t use any communication technology to trigger or motivate action without figuring out the magic words first.

This in fact, is what I call, the miracle of the microcosm, since in this nation of 300 million technology and media indoctrinated people, you can learn what it takes to turn people on anywhere. This is what expert PR and marketing copywriters are really for.

And once you do figure out what you can say that turns people on (no matter where you are) then and only then can you use technology as a force multiplier, to generate the actions you want people to take, wherever they are.

Read more on social media marketing ROI here http://blog.directcontactpr.com/public/category/social-marketing/

My post yesterday triggered a lot of discussion including worried cries from lots of Twitter afficianodos. Sorry, I didn’t want to dampen your enthusiasm or blind devotion.

It’s that pesky ROI question that I’m wanting to focus on specifically and strategically.

If you are getting ROI and it’s worth your while, then keep doing it. I want to see facts and data and learn how people do it profitably.

I would like to see what you say, understand who you say it to, and what happens specifically and over what period of time. I’d like to learn the connections to your landing pages and your fees to see how the ROI is generated.

My experience and that of many many many repeat many many many of my clients, invest time and energy and even create huge numbers of followers and even they see very little for it in terms of real ROI. Oh a few do, but very few indeed.

I think there are many reasons for this.

First is that the ability to communicate meaningfully so that you persuade and achieve action is very limited by Twitters brevity and that no matter what you give, getting through to people so that you achieve action is really hard.

Second, I think that at least in lots of businesses, successful people do not make decisions that entail or rely on or are even remotely influenced by what they can learn from Twitter conversations.

Sure, there are success stories and they are galvanizing. But they are actually rare. The data on ROI for bread and butter people and businesses is lacking.

Personally, I don’t mind Twitter at all. To me it is another tool in the arsenal. Like all the others, the technology has special communications requirements.

Some people don’t want to look at it as a marketing tool. They say to me “I don’t get it”. It’s just for communicating with people.

I think they are missing my point. Clients want to use it as a marketing tool. It’s a given fact. So it is the use of the tool for marketing that I want to focus on.

There are many people who think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Obviously, there are people who are growing up using these technologies, and even building their lifestyles, and their livelihoods and incomes and the way they communicate with their clients around the technologies they use. To them, Twitter is just a wonderful extension of what they do and feel.

Like it or not, there are plenty of people who do use it and with text messaging and the ease of use on cell phones and blackberries, it is important to keep your options open. My kids use it. My doctor doesn’t. I do sometimes. Some people live and breathe on their iPods. They may have nothing better to do with their time.

I like being able to search and ascertain who’s talking about what. Although it has limits and doesn’t compare to the Internet for quality content and reliable detailed information searches for real problem solving data or information.

It’s a great tool for finding out “what’s happening” and searching for news and following real time events. Put in the word ‘tornado’ and you’ll find out exactly what’s touching down where and within seconds of it happening.

It has a valuable function for businesses who monitor what people say or who need to respond to a crisis.

All these things are true and all it takes is money and take time and effort and skill.

So I’m not giving up on it at all. I’m not averse to using it.

My questions are how much money, how much time, and what skills?

I am a scientist and a former attorney and a consultant who seeks to provide service and value. I think in terms of systematic processes to achieve success. The processes have to be capable of being reproduced for me to recommend them to clients and to teach with them.

So my search is for valid guidelines and tactics. Hence, what I hope for is not hope and hype, but statistically proven tactics with some documentation of the ROI.

I’m looking for guidelines in how to use it wisely and what messages work best for what purposes.

That’s my point. To measure the ROI with Twitter is very difficult. It varies phenomenally.

The number of followers to me is a dubious metric. You can develop a following and be in communications with thousands of people. You can tweet to them three times a day or three times a week.

But does it produce sales? Does the time and effort and money you invest yield a net income and is it worthwhile?

That is the question I want to focus on.

The time it takes to do this well competes with other income producing activities you can be doing. How you spend your time is a choice you make.

I am very cognizant of the power of targeted communications. The right message in front of the right people can be truly amazing. I do this with media day in day out.

But what if the people you reach using Twitter don’t react in a way that lets you profit from the time effort you invest in it.

You have to determine that yourself.

I want people to succeed when they use Twitter or any other medium of communication.

I see that people have to be careful though that they don’t replace productive income producing activities, with less income producing activities. That’s one of the risks here.

My recommendation is to track exactly what you do and make an objective determination and compare it to other dedicated marketing activities that produce sales.

Decide based on the income data.

If it works do more of it. That’s common sense.

But if you find it’s eating up your time and the hits don’t ripen into sales and ROI, then perhaps you should do something else.

If you spend just half an hour a day on Twitter, you’ve made a decision that results in you giving 15 hours a month to it. Are you making ten dollars an hour for your time? Did you by any chance just lose 15 hours at $100 an hour doing that?

That’s the type of choice I face.

Like it or not, much to the dismay of those who have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, lots of people are finding out that Twitter can be a demanding time eater, and it may produce very little in the way of tangible and reliable income.

In fact, it can take them away from other proven activities that are needed to produce income that they rely on.

Everyone has to make the choice for themselves and decide how to spend time that produces income.

I think that given how difficult it is to survive and make an income these days, it is really important for people to document what they really experience carefully, so that they can make good sound decisions.

That’s what I’m really interested in. Hard data. Not theory. Fact.

How much time do you need to invest to develop a following?

How do you really reach the people who really matter to your business?

How do you communicate with them?

These are simple but important questions.

The number of dollars per unit time expended is something more interesting to me since I can compare it directly to how I spend time and the income I presently receive.

The way I spend that time is very important since I can compare it to how I know I spend my time now and the income I presently receive for that conduct.

What messages are best for what purpose is also a subject I’m very interested in because I can compare it to how I communicate now and what income those communications produce for me.

That’s what I’m after.

I think it would help others to find out these things as well.