By Neil Patrick
I have a slide which I use in almost every social media presentation I give. It’s this:
I am looking forward to the day that I can ditch this from my slide deck. That’s the day when everyone has learned that social media isn’t a sales platform.
But I fear that this slide is going to remain in use for a long time to come.
I’m not about to say that social media is a waste of our time and money. It’s not. Far from it. It just should never be used to try and sell people things. It’s a great way to build goodwill, to share information, to get noticed, to have our say and to build communities.
Why isn’t that enough guys?
I get huge value from social media. Because of it, I make great and valuable connections with amazing people all over the world. These wonderful people help me out on a daily basis. And I try to do my bit to help them out in return. Am I going to abuse those relationships by telling them I’ve got a great offer for them? Hell no. I’d rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick.
It helps me get my voice heard. It saves me a shedload of money on marketing. Google adwords at £1.80 a click? No thanks.
Social media keeps me up to date on who is talking about things I’m interested in. It allows me to easily follow the thoughts and ideas of people I look up to. It allows people to connect with me and tell me what they think.
Almost every day social media brings me astonishing opportunities that I’d never have if all I did was use it to try and flog stuff to people.
Social media gets me clients and business all the time. But that's not because I advertise, it's because they come to like and trust me. They choose if and when they want to do business with me. I don't presume that they will want to. Or pretend that I can second guess when they will want to.
That’s a pretty amazing heap of valuable benefits I think. Am I going to chuck it all away by naff advertising to people? NO WAY.
So please sales people please stop abusing the goodwill of the people you want to be your friends online.
'Nuff said.
Yes Seravina. I agree great content is important. It delivers views, shares and credibility. But it does almost nothing to convert online traffic into offline value. That's down to analogue actions and caring about people more than anything else. Call me to discuss if you'd like. ;-)
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