When you think about your social media strategy what is the
first thing that comes to mind? Do you think about connecting with your
customers (or the customers of your customers)? Is it about spreading a message
and championing causes? Or is it simply about getting as much publicity as
possible to help generate profits from your products and services?
Let’s be honest everyone who owns a business and uses any
form of Social Media in their marketing strategy is hoping to see a boost in
profits because of it. This is completely understandable. However, lately in
the news we have been hearing about instances on Facebook and Twitter where
users have generated thousands of “followers” or “likes” that are now turning
out to be fakes. Also every time you go on any type of Social Media information
site on the web, ads pop up telling you that they can get you thousands of
followers overnight, but does simply appearing to have a large following really
help when it comes to marketing your products and services? I would say it’s
about as good as having a thousand invisible friends. Sure you can look at
yourself and think you’re doing big things and make up stories about how you
know all these people, but when other people find out you’re talking about
individuals that don’t exist they are going to call you out on being a liar
(and in the case of invisible friends, probably just plain crazy)!
The problem goes deeper than that though. Yes, it’s wrong
that businesses are lying to their consumers and trying to seem more
influential than they actually are, but the real problem here is that these
businesses and individuals have lost sight of the true importance of Social
Media and perhaps marketing in general. When you are creating a marketing
strategy, specifically a Social Media Marketing strategy the first thing to
remember is that marketing is not simply about selling. In order for marketing
to be successful it has to be informative and truthful. If you aren’t truthful
eventually people will begin to sniff through all the lies. In Social Media
this even goes a step further. Here people really expect you to be transparent
and open. You are trying to get into their personal surroundings, and if they
are going to let you into that personal environment then you have to give them
a personal feel as well.
The notion of fake followers also disturbs me for another
reason. Social Media Marketing is about connecting to people and showing them
that what you’re doing is important and can benefit them as well. It’s about
connecting to REAL people. What good can 10,000 fake followers do? Sure it
might make you more noticeable, but how many real people does that really bring
to your page? Are those even the people that you truly want to connect with? I
know that if I produced a product that I really thought was something great and
marketed through Social Media, I wouldn’t simply be looking for fans that liked
me because I simply had thousands of fans already. Also when it comes down to
it, what is the true point of these fake followers? You can’t market a product
to a fake person. Well, I suppose you can but I doubt they’ll end up buying
anything from you. Bottom line here is that only real people lead to real sales
that lead to real money.
The real message here is that we as an industry shouldn’t
fall prey to these deceptive strategies that other industries have begun to
use. The people who we want to reach are real hardworking people, and so are
we. If we show this in our Social Media efforts it will be appreciated and will
lead to better business. This should be the goal of any marketing strategy:
connect with your customer and prove that you can offer them the best
product/service at the best price. Let your “popularity” speak for itself.
On another note, I am thinking of moving this blog to
Wordpress. If that would be a problem for any readers out there please let me
know. If there are a number of people who would prefer me to stay on Blogger, I
will gladly do so. I am even thinking about simply doubling up and posting the
same posts on both sites. Please let me know what you prefer/think.
In case you need to contact me for any reason my contact
information is:
Email mday55@gmail.com
Twitter @mday55
Or search for me on Google +, LinkedIn, or on Klout.
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