Getting businesses involved in social media marketing is often like trying to get a child to eat their vegetables. Like kids with vegetables, many business do not see the long term benefits of social media marketing, and the side effects of investing time to create relationships with clients and prospects.
I am not a big fan of social media.
I am bothered by the fact that I feel compelled to share every aspect of my life in a public way. Any time something funny, interesting, or creative happens I have to share it with the world. I have 2 children, so if I didn’t keep my photos updated I would be excommunicated from the family.
Quite often I find it a challenge to continually update my social profiles. Something interesting happens or I find a great piece of content, I have to share it. I have to decide to what social property I share it with. I have to decide if I want to comment on it, or do I just post it. Like button? Tweet? Both?
Despite these bothersome qualities I still keep up with social media marketing for one big reason:
Revenue. I can directly attribute the vast majority of my current revenue stream and clients to social media. This is an example of one tweet from Jason Finnerty ( from Brandscaping ) that set off an explosion of WordPress work from Tanaka Creative and a number of referrals afterwards.
The important thing to note here is that had I not invested the time to develop relationships through social media I likely would not have had that referral. I would not have had all the other referrals, and there is a pretty good chance that I would not be working for bWEST right now.
There are times when it can be difficult to attribute specific dollar amounts to the time invested. Keep in mind that if executed and maintained correctly a social media presence can have an extremely positive impact on your bottom line. It’s an investment, and investments are long term commitments.
If you do not believe that social media marketing can help your business improve then please challenge us!
Leave a comment below or contact us, and let us know your concerns about using social media for your business.
2 thoughts on “Social Media is Like Eating Vegetables: You May Not Like it, but it’s Good for You.”
Nice article Chris and you make a great point.
There’s a time investment required, but the ROI is impressive, especially if you look at the long term results.
Glad it worked out for you, and thanks for the mention!
J
Chris B. has a graph in one of his presentations that shows the ROI of social media. It starts off as negative, then sits at being even for some time, and then after 6 months it finally shows some growth.
It’s that initial investment that shows a loss, plus the zero growth (investment period) that is a real turn off for many businesses (and people as well, I always expect instant results).