Last night, as I was teaching my Basics of Online Marketing class at the local community college, I had an epiphany.
As I was diligently helping Joyce struggle through approving her password for her free WordPress blog, I realized social media, with all its awesomeness, is just not where a majority of small businesses need to be focusing their energy right now.
Sorry, Chris Brogan, my short-lived career as a social media zealot is over.
Let me explain my thoughts for a moment. The underlying idea behind the social media “movement”, that business people need to create two-way channels of communication with their audience that build value and establish trust, is as crucial as ever. This idea has been around since day one of humanity. It should be front and center to a business’ success strategy.
But, the truth is, there are a few layers of reality between the Social Media elite who praise the glories of Twitter and Facebook and the small mom and pop businesses of the world who don’t even have a website.
The social media hype machine is all well and good for some types of businesses (a fair percentage of whom make their living consulting on social media or affiliate marketing) but for the owner of the local plumbing shop I talked with who is still trying to get up-to-speed with replying to email, exhorting him to connect with his client base on Twitter is just not the next action on the to-do list.
Am I saying that if your audience lives on Facebook you don’t need to be right there with them? Of course you do! But you better learn to walk before you start to run. And, there are likely four other steps you could be taking that would provide you a much greater return on investment than tweeting your day away or building your facebook page.
I remember seeing a tweet a few months ago from John Jantsch, the marketing guru (who I have tremendous respect for). John expressed a certain amount of shock that 50% of the businesses in the US don’t have a website. Well, guess what? That is reality. And, a good number of others have anemic 3 page sites from the likes of Superpages that are doing nothing for their businesses.
Communicating through the “new” social media channels in a way that is going to benefit a small business takes a fair amount of talent, practice, and dedication. If you are up to that point, then you likely can benefit. But if you are like most small businesses you have some other important work to do first.
By the way, Joyce never did get that password approved.. She was having trouble connecting to her webmail account. But don’t worry, I have a Plan B and she will be up and running with Word Press very soon. One step at a time!
