There’s a bit of a tension at play in discussions about social media as a marketing technique. Some will position it as some sort of magic bullet that will take your business to greatness with barely any effort. Whilst the productivity police will caution you against losing precious time and energy in a social media black hole.
The truth, as with almost all extreme views, is somewhere in the middle. There are some amazing results to be had in using social media for marketing. But, sadly, because it is often used poorly, there are also hours of precious time, and thousands in heard-earned cash, wasted every day.
2 reasons your social media marketing isn’t working
There are two key reasons I’d pull out, from amongst many more, that I see as critical when social media marketing is not delivering:
- Use of social media has not been mapped to the buying decision to support it effectively all the way through.
- There is no next step, i.e. a decent piece of useful content to draw people in from beyond the social interaction.
Without these two things you can be absolutely sure that your time on social media will be wasted in terms of its effect on your marketing, just as much as:
- Advertising that nobody notices.
- Telesales with no next step offer.
- Direct mail sent to the wrong person.
- A networking event at which you speak to nobody.
- A press release without your company name in it.
- A website without a phone number or contact form.
- A viral video that has no link back to the originator.
- A blog article about something outside your area of expertise.
- A product page without a call to action.
- A sales promise without some sort of proof point.
- I could go on…
All marketing that is not set within the way that real people really buy things is a necessarily waste of time.
TRAINING: Map social media to every step of the sale
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If you want to see how to map your social media activity to every step of the sale, and integrate it effectively with your other marketing activities, come along to my Guardian Masterclass on the 9th June. More details
© Bryony Thomas – The Watertight Marketer
Bryony Thomas
Author & Founder, Watertight Marketing
Bryony Thomas is the multi-award winning creator of the Watertight Marketing methodology, captured in the best-selling book of the same name. Bryony is a popular professional speaker for entrepreneurial audiences. Bryony's impressive career includes heading up the Microsoft account in the UK aged 26, and securing the role of divisional director of marketing for FTSE 100, Experian, aged 28.
Bryony –
Good stuff.
I think part of the reason your watertight marketing approach is so effective is that by starting at the destination (a loyal customer), everything you do feeds that target.
Much better than funnels to nowhere
Absolutely agree Steven. After all, what will get you where you need to be? A swanky car and no map… or a functional car and someone who knows where you need to get to?
Right now I’d settle for a swanky car and no particular place to go but the weather will change tomorrow.
This was a really good post and listing all those wasted efforts, I was identifying with each, in fact when you got to ‘I could go on…’ I so wished you had. I need to winkle out all my bad habits in one go.
Thanks for the ‘self’ insight.
Hi Edwin, glad you enjoyed it. If you do want a tool to find all your wasted effort, look no further than the Thirteen Touchpoint Leaks.