Can your business survive without social media?
Is that a controversial headline for you? It’s the title of the only presentation I do solely on Social Media. I touch on social media in many of my trainings and talks, but I stay away from talking about the platform of the moment, because that can change in the blink of an eye. And, as you are reading this, some platform you’re using has adjusted some algorithm that may affect what you do there.
Listen to this new, 10-minute episode for a little perspective and a reality check, and see if you can either gain back some precious time, or get a better ROI.
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– Can your business survive without social media? Ooh, listen to this episode. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast”, Can Your Business Survive Without Social Media? It’s actually the title of a presentation that I’ve given many times on this topic. It’s probably the only one that I give specifically on social media because things change so fast in so many different platforms that just like my first book, which is a website book, which was not how to build a website but how to think about it, kind of strategize on it, that one’s called “If Your Website Was An Employee, Would You Fire It?” It’s already in its second edition. This same idea, “Can your business survive without social media?” is a strategy discussion. It’s not which platform should you be on or not be on. Although I will touch on that a little bit here.
But really what it’s about is a strategy. And most people that I have met and speak with have jumped into the social media pools because they were told they had to and because other people were, other people in their market, in their category, were doing that. They see on social media other people that are like them or they’d like to be like, and they say, “Well, I’m going to jump in.” And the problem is, is you don’t know what that other person is doing other than what you see. You don’t know how much time they’re spending. You don’t know how much education they’ve had on that particular platform. You don’t know if they’re just all in on the one platform or are they aggregating because they’re using some thing like Buffer or Hootsuite or something that’s pushing it out to all these different platforms and they’re not doing a lot of manual work. Like with me, when I put out my new podcast, which you guys are obviously listening to here, it goes into many groups online which is something I can’t automate. So I have my assistant do that and she puts it out onto all the different groups for me. I’m still writing the content, I’m still creating the content.
This is me, I’m not a chatbot. This is me creating this content. But I’ve also purposefully chosen the platforms I’m going to be on, and I’m purposefully excluding platforms that I know I could be on. People all the time are asking me why I’m not on TikTok, why am I not on TikTok? And as of the recording of this, I’m not on TikTok because you are not looking for me on TikTok. You’re finding me on the other platforms. So you’re finding me on Facebook, that’s my main platform. Instagram would probably be second, and LinkedIn, probably a a close third in there. It could be second, could be third. I get my most interactions on Facebook. And so that’s where I place my time. And this is the key. You have to be looking at interactions. You have to be looking at your audience growth, not the size of your audience, but your audience growth. If your number is not going up, you’re going backwards because how many people have you, I’m doing air quotes if you’re just listening here, “followed” but you no longer pay attention to what they do? Or liked and no longer pay attention to what they do?
It takes a lot for people to unfollow or unlike someone. I’m famously, I’m known for unfriending people only because Facebook has capped me at 5,000. And I have every day, every single day, I have friend requests from people. That shows me that my audience is growing organically. But I also have people on, some of those 5,000 that aren’t paying attention anymore. And the way that I choose to cull the herd, if you will there, is I wish people a happy birthday on Facebook. It tells me whose birthday it is every day. I send a private message to that person, wish them happy birthday. And if you don’t respond to me two years in a row, not two days later, two years in a row that you don’t respond to me on that, just acknowledging it, I don’t need a whole, “Hey, thank you so much for thinking of my birthday. I really enjoy your message.” I get some of those, I get a lot of those. But I also get thumbs up, or I get a heart. And that’s an acknowledgement that you saw it, you recognized it, that’s all I need you to do. If you don’t do that, it doesn’t mean I don’t like you. That’s not what it means. It means you’re not paying attention to your private messages on a platform that I use.
Like if you were to message me on TikTok, I do have a platform there, I probably won’t see it because I’m never on there. I never go on there. Actually, I think I had deleted the app for a while. I might have put it back on. Instagram, I do get the messages, but it’s kind of delayed because I see the Facebook ones right away. I see the LinkedIn ones right away. I have to go in to look for the Instagram ones because it’s connected to my business account and all on Facebook. So it just makes it a little bit more difficult. So I pay attention to the platforms that people are connecting with me, that people are engaging. It’s called social media. Social because it’s social is interactions between people. So if someone is not being social back with me, okay, maybe this isn’t your platform. I know this with a lot of my speaker friends who I’m friends with on Facebook, I’m connected with a lot on LinkedIn, and they’ll respond to me on LinkedIn, but not on Facebook. Okay, so I might actually unfriend them on Facebook because if that’s your platform, LinkedIn, then let’s connect over there. Let’s not connect over here and let’s save space for someone else.
Because I’m telling you, every day, I’m getting friend requests and probably once a week I get a notification from Facebook, “You’re reaching your limit. You’re reaching your 5,000 limit.” So I had to figure out a way to say who’s not paying attention? That’s really all it is. So the question for you is, who is paying attention? Do you have a strategy for measuring that? Do you look at the content that you do and do you see what kind of engagement you get? And is that telling you what other type of content to put out there? Or are you just throwing stuff up against the wall and not really paying attention to who’s liking it? I remember early on, when I started my own business, everything I put up, my sister would like. I was one of her 12 friends on Facebook or something like that. So she would like it and that was great. I had a like, it was nice, but is that really helping my business? No. So what I’m looking for is when I post something, who is commenting? Is it the same people over and over again? Is it different people? Are different people attracted to different types of content? Am I measuring the effectiveness of this?
I know that I have gotten business through Facebook. Not sure about Instagram, not really sure about LinkedIn. I have a Pinterest profile. Don’t go look at it. I haven’t posted anything there in years. TikTok, again, I grabbed name over there. Don’t go look over there. I’m not putting anything there. Twitter, you know when I post stuff on Instagram, I can check a box and put it up on Twitter, so I do. You guys left Twitter and we went to Instagram. Then years ago, you were all on Facebook and Twitter. And then one day I looked up and everybody went. It was like a fire. Boom! Shoom! Somebody yelled, “Fire,” you all left there and you went over to Instagram. So I followed you. Now I see people going over to TikTok but I don’t see them looking for people like me there. So I’ve yet to go there.
I don’t need to be the first one on a new platform. I don’t. I go for the audience. It’s all about the audience. My audience is on Facebook. That’s my strategy. What’s your strategy? If TikTok went away tomorrow, wouldn’t affect my business. If Pinterest went away tomorrow, wouldn’t affect my business. If Instagram went away tomorrow, might have a minor impact on my business. Same thing with LinkedIn. It would have a minor impact on me connecting with some people. I think LinkedIn is where I connect with some of my speaker colleagues. If Facebook went away, it would have an impact on my business. It would not allow me to reach my audience in a way that I do right now and to grow my audience in a way that I do right now.
So, for me, that’s where I am. That’s my strategy. What is yours? And are you measuring it? And what is your measurement for ROI, return on investment? The time that you’re spending and the return that you’re getting. And the return could be money in sales, it could be engagement with your current audience, it could be engagement with new audiences. If you haven’t listened to the episodes that I’ve done here with Mark Chapman on Google ads and TikTok ads, two separate episodes, Facebook ads is in there as well, you might want to listen to those. Because if you really want to get to people that don’t already follow you, the way to do that is by buying ads. It’s not the organic content. It’s going to be a slow road with organic content.
I have the Facebook pixel on my website. I could retarget people, meaning if you had gone to my website at any point since that’s been on, I could put an ad in front of you on Facebook. I don’t, I just don’t buy ads there. My business is busy enough that I’m not prospecting in that way. But I have it so that I could turn it on, should I choose to. And if I did that, by the way, I would hire somebody to do that because I don’t really know how to do those ads as well as other people, like The I do Society with Mark Chapman. So think about this, or I should say, have you thought about this?
What is your strategy for social media? Are you measuring it? Are you getting a good return on your investment? And just ask yourself if a particular platform went away tomorrow, would it affect your business? Other than giving you more time back, would it affect your business because you’re going to lose business because you’re not there? Because if you’re not getting engagement on those platforms now, or on a particular platform, you’re not getting a return on investment and you’re actually losing money and time because you’re not getting a return. So either learn to do it better or choose not to be on every one of them. You don’t have to be on every one of them. You do have to be where your audience is looking for people like you. Hope that gave you some food for thought. Thanks.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
- Pandora:
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