A prospective client called and said, “I haven’t needed to market over the past 15 years. I’ve gotten plenty of work through word-of-mouth referrals. But everything has changed and I need to be on social media.”
She explained her goals:
- Use LinkedIn more effectively (she has thousands of connections from her years in business!)
- Start using Twitter – that’s what her competitors do. And she works in the marketing and communications field, so she needs to show that she’s hip to social media communication.
- Create a Facebook Page – see above.
But, she confided, her competitors aren’t doing too well. Their industry is changing, and it’s a challenge for all of them to find new business.
I asked, “what results do you expect from LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook?”
She said, “I want more business of course, but I know there’s not a direct correlation between using social media and getting business. I just want to show people that I use social media so they don’t think I’m irrelevant.”
My feedback to her goals:
- Don’t copy your competitors, especially if your competitors aren’t doing well! The best way to stand out is to position yourself as different and more valuable.
- Don’t bother with Facebook and Twitter. These networks CAN be used for “reputation management” – posting once in a while to show you exist – but why bother? It’s not going to help you network, get business, or make an impact. Besides, Facebook is failing as a lead generation tool (unless you pour money into ads), and Twitter is a network for daily, not casual, users.
- Go deep, not wide. Because she is so well-established on LinkedIn, she’ll get better results from focusing there instead of spreading her attention across three social media networks.
I told this woman the story of my client, Jane*, who came to me with a lot of followers on LinkedIn, a nice archive of blog posts, and a desire to get more leads and visibility online.
I started by writing by writing conversational, quippy text for her blog posts and publishing them on LinkedIn every other day. On alternating days I researched articles, podcasts, blog posts and more to publish (I call this “3rd party content” – any content that helps your audience but that you didn’t create yourself).
And Jane did something super important: she logged on to LinkedIn daily to talk to people. She responded to comments, she liked and commented on other people’s posts, she sent connection requests to people she wanted to work with. In other words, she networked. In other other words, she made sure to be friendly and approachable on LinkedIn.
During the first six months of working together, Jane’s traffic from LinkedIn to her website increased by 150%. Her LinkedIn audience increased, and at the end of the year she was recognized as a top leader by the network!
I love the power – and results – of focusing on ONE social media network.
*Jane is not my client’s real name – but it IS my mom’s name!
