Social Media Gurus Piss Me Off

Just like any small business owner I am bombarded by more SEO and SM advice that I can possibly handle.  It comes from all quarters.  It is full of jargon and I can barely read it or watch the videos.  For starters I just don’t have the time and secondly I find it deadly boring.   Rather than dismiss it thouh I was reflecting on why I find it all so impenetrable.  There has to be a lesson in it for me and others.  And of course I found it.  I realized three things that are universally being overlooked in the wailing from the highest tower about how good their services are:

 

1. The clue is in the title, Social Media MARKETING.  Marketing has its place in the lifecycle of a business and it (should) always comes after the definition of an overall strategy and business concept.  Unfortunately somewhere around 90% of business never ever write down a business plan other than on a piece of scrap paper at the idea stage and of the 10% more still don’t use it as a guide.  Life just moves on so fast.  Which is why when someone comes along chirping about the importance of SEO and SM that the owner just gets on board (as they tend to do with things that offer me-too capability but rarely do with differentiating ideas). 

 

Much in the same way that the saying goes that we get the politicians that we deserve so the same is true for our media.  That holds for print and TV media and has come to be true of Social Media.  If we aren’t asking our SM experts to situate their input in the terms of an overall business concept then we’ll not get that.  We’ll get when we get which is (with a few exceptions) the appearance that your business begins with an SM strategy.  It doesn’t it beings with your overall vision, mission, values and principles for your business.  Having SM tactics (bundling them together does not make it a strategy, they are really just a lot of tactics) will get you closer to your vision but will only be effective in doing that in the context of a broader business overview.

 

That is what I discovered that most SM experts miss.  They don’t ever refer to their ability or willingness to defer commenting on how SM can help my business, to what extent, to what value until they have fully understood my vision and mission.  This is a big mistake.

 

2. Secondly the messages are all written by SM experts.  What makes a good SM expert? Someone who loves technology, is an early adopter, is really focussed on researching and delivering great content.  What makes for a rotten SM expert?  Someone like me who far prefers a person to a PC, who believes that a  handshake is not something that two computers can do, who has so many projects on his plate that his (untidy) desk is overflowing and who believes that everyone should be just like him.  Where is the problem?  The SM guru is one personality type and they don’t seem to be able to find ways of reaching other personality types.  The guys who are becoming minor celebrities in this arena are hitting lots of hot buttons with some types of people but they are leaving others behind.  That’s fair enough but I will be giving my SM dollars to the coach/consultant who talks my language and sees life through my eyes.

 

There are plenty of courses and models to help people understand the various personality types and apply SEO type techniques to their marketing message will help to attract more attention and belief from a wider variety of people than they currently are by writing for people like them.  I use DISC as my tool to help clients understand that not everyone is like them and why that is a good thing.

 

3. Lastly I realized that when you combine the first two points the big thing missing for me is ROI.  In DISC terminology I am a high D and I like to know what I get back in return for my investment in time and money.  I don’t know what a hit is worth and I don’t know what an eyeball is worth.  That lack of ability to attribute value to metrics is a reality for most businesses and those that think that they con do it accurately are generally kidding themselves.  Their brand and message are evolving faster than ever as is the competition, so the use of useless metrics concerns me. 

All of this goes to explain why it is that the person who gets my SM dollars is going to talk in terms of the bottom-line and they will know the impact that they will have because they will have understood my strategy and my other marketing channels.