Twenty years ago, if someone told you about this new contraption called the "world wide web" and that your business needed a website, chances are, you would have thought that person crazy and sent them packing. Today, we all know that if a business does NOT have a website, they are anything from bogus to out of touch to secretive...all recipes for disaster in creating a successful business model.
Add the term "social media" today, and you probably get the same looks. I can't tell you how many people I discuss blogging and Twitter, among others, with business owners in this area, and they are shocked that they need to add yet another layer of marketing/communications to their business model. There, in and of itself, lays many paradoxes in a successful business.
A business can create a Facebook "Fan" Page, which essentially gets followers, yet the number of followers one has doesn't necessarily mean that "quantity" is better than "quality." If you create a fan page and have a huge hoopla behind it, then neglect it, chances are your clients or "fans" will lose interest and go someplace else for their info. Same could be said for Twitter or other social media layers in promoting one's business or self.
But then comes the Catch-22 of business. I mean, at the end of day, all businesses are trying to promote ourselves and our business and what other products/services we are trying to sell. But how do you try to sound like you're not trying to do all that?
Several blogs I know and follow are guilty of the shameless self-promotion. I have a friend, as an example, whom I adore but his Twitter antics are legendary. Generally, when he publishes a blog post, everyone and their brother/cousin/uncle gets a link to it. It's legendary in that I find if I get notice that it's published, I tend to read it before he can "spam" with it. Yet, it's something I think about -- we tend to do the same things for self-promotion just to get "page views." But at the end of the day, is it really just a glorified pissing contest? "I get more page views than you do." Kind of silly, especially when we are not truly selling a product.
But then apply that to business. I am on an email distribution for a social media "university" of sorts, and I decided to sign up for a webinar. The course was scheduled for an hour and a half, and the first half hour I guess was the real "meat" of the deal. However, they blew through the first half hour, then spent the next half hour promoting what THEY could do to help you.
Granted, I didn't pay for it, it was a free webinar. So one could argue that you get what you pay for. On the flip side, they just literally came off telling us that a tool like Twitter could be used for certain things, but not for "spamming" either links to the site, or sounding like a press release. Which is exactly what they did after telling their listening audience NOT to!
No wonder so many people/business owners are reluctant to do a social media layer. They wonder what's in it for them!
It's not that I didn't take anything away from it. I mean, at the end of the day, we use social media for different purposes. This could be for education, or following our favorite actors and actresses, getting updates from our favorite media outlets, and to converse with friends and family about common interests. I often tell business people that you get what you put into Twitter, as an example. If you find that Twitter isn't useful and that you're wasting time on it, chances are...you are! But it's obviously the next layer of marketing that is essential in survival in business.
Yet, building your own buzz is a Catch-22 in social media. You have to follow several people, and make your mark by being accessible while answering and asking several questions in the field you are promoting yourselves in. Learning and staying abreast of the newest technologies. At the same time, you can't overtly "self-promote" like my friend can do. Although the people he is respected in the community take it with a grain of salt, there are others who think that self-promoting is a turn-off.
So which is it? Can it be both ways? If you're in social media for whatever reason, chances are you've hit the Catch-22 of self-promotion too. It's a pain in the ass, but a necessary evil in today's technology. Which is in and of itself, a Catch-22.
Oy.
