Social Media Marketing and Unicorns and Rainbows

“If you’ve read about social media or been to any marketing conferences, you’ve probably heard tons of advice like love your customers, engage in the conversation, be yourself, and make friends. I call this unicorns-and-rainbows advice. Take a couple of time-honored adages, add in the unquestioning awe of an unaware audience, and pretty soon you’ve got an entire industry based on easy-to-agree-with but unsubstantiated ideas. But there’s a problem. Myths aren’t real and superstitions often do more harm than good.” -Dan Zarrella, Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness

Most People Aren’t Social and Can’t Market

So many people think “if I just get a Twitter account and Facebook Fan Page I can grow my business.”

Really? I hope you have a prescription for whatever it is you’re smoking.

The irony is most people are neither sociable or knowledgeable when it comes to marketing but somehow two wrongs make a right when it comes to Twotting and Facetubing and Youbooking.

(There are also no unicorns. There is no pot of gold or little Irishmen at the end of rainbows. Mermaids are only in the movies. There is no prince in Uganda that wants to share $10,000,000 with you just for helping him cash a check.)

Create Your Message First. Then Choose The Best Medium To Deliver It.

If you want to grow you need to focus on the message, not the medium.

You need to focus on the “Who” and then it will become much easier to focus on the message.

You can’t sell to or service everyone. Choose who to lose and shout it from the top of a mountain.

There is power in stating what you are not, what you won’t stand for, what you leave out, thus “gluten-free,” “Zero Calories” and Dan Kennedy’s “No B.S.” series of business growth advice.

Ask yourself this question: How persuasive, powerful, influential and interesting am I?

If the answer is somewhere between “not very” and “kind of” you’re just spinning your wheels and self-medicating as you goof off (that’s what you’re really doing) on your social media accounts.

Until you get a backbone of steel and tell the world what you stand for and what you don’t stand for and deliver this powerful message in a powerful manner you’d be better off waiting for Santa Claus to bring you that golden list of willing and able buyers.

At least you wouldn’t get sucked into worthless debates on Facebook about global warming, Kanye West, who’s on drugs in the NFL, or whether a politician has lied to us. 

To really grow you need to work hard, do the right things and have the right tools to attract, capture, nurture, convert, deliver & satisfy, upsell and get referrals from leads and clients.

My secret weapon has been a combination of HubSpot, Infusionsoft, Ontraport, and having a Sales Agenda.

What’s yours?