Are You Practicing Social Media Incest?
18 Dec
The incest in online video, blogging, podcasting, and social media is rampant.
I’m not talking about running off to West Virginia with your sister kind of incest – I mean the subject matter of most social media is incestuous.
All we seem to talk about in our podcasts, videos, and blog posts is podcasts, videos, and blog posts.
That’s equivalent to a newspaper only covering stories about the newspaper industry. Who would read such a paper? Other newspaper people… maybe. Aspiring writers and publishers? Okay. But what about the rest of the world?
This very blog post proves my point.
It is now time to stop wasting our time and focus outward to help real life businesses drive sales, marketing, and PR through social media.
It’s been beaten into our brains that social media should live with PR and is awkward and weird in the world of advertising.
Bull crap!
That’s the consultants talking who don’t know how to show a ROI for this stuff.
That’s the traditional advertisers talking who aren’t used to the laser focus direct marketing campaigns that drive quantifiable sales and results.
I think social media should live with marketing as a live or die – pass or fail tool. Either it works to increase your bottom line or it doesn’t.
As a business owner – I don’t want some social media consultant telling me how great social media is and how it’s going to change the world but fail to tell me how it will change my business.
If it can’t be measured and quantified it doesn’t exist. Period.
Think I sound harsh? Try talking with any marketing executive at any serious company and you’ll see how easy I sound.
Bottom line – if social media (and more importantly you if you are a consultant/practitioner) are going to survive in the real business world, you better find real ways to drive real business and show it to real people. Or the people paying you now will catch on and fire you .
And the people you hope consult for will laugh in your face when you come calling.
You say: “Okay okay Joel – get off your high horse you self-righteous little twerp.”
Here are two great examples of driving sales using Social Media. If you are an old school social media type these won’t be news to you – but for those newbies out there…
Wine Library TV
Gary Vaynerchuk does a daily video podcast that has skyrocketed his companies wine sales. Not to mention sent him into the stratosphere as a mini celebrity.
Will It Blend
BlendTec began using videos to illustrate the blending power of their $400 blenders. The CEO would blend iPods, blocks of wood, and other items to show the force and power of the blender. Sales of $400 blenders are up.
Questions:
If you are a social media professional – how do you measure return on investment for yourself and clients?
If you are a business owner – would social media appeal to you if you could measure the results?
Follow me on twitter to discuss.
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This site, Joel-Mark-Witt.com, is where I ask the questions while standing at the intersection of social media, marketing, PR, storytelling, life and leadership…. and what the heck this all means for my business and yours. If you like what you see please subscribe to it for free. To join the discussion or to comment follow me on Twitter.
* Photo by Will Lion
