You might think this post would be all about what not to do while marketing your site in the Web 2.0 nexus we call “social media” … but it’s not.
You see I ran across a very interesting service yesterday called the “Web 2.0 Suicide Machine“. It’s designed to automatically erase your profiles, contacts, and posts on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and MySpace, and ensure you can’t log back in again.
Apparently this is a task which would take several hours if you tried to do it manually, but now you can kill your social self with just one click… brilliant. (They plug the benefit of “discovering your real friends again”)
Now, whether or not this is a good idea for a marketer really depends upon how judiciously you’ve been using social media, and what results you’ve been getting.
The majority of marketers I’ve spoken with seem to be aggressively TRYING to profit from social media, at the expense of time and energy which could definitely be put to better use in more traditional direct response efforts. (NOTE: there ARE a small minority, however, who seem to be leveraging social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook… it’s still not clear to me the exact principles and techniques they’re using which distinguish them from the riff raff… as soon as I can find someone who talks about it clearly and cogently I’ll get them for an interview!)
What I think the emergence of the Social Suicide Machine does point out is, it’s worthwhile beginning the year by asking yourself “Are you spending too much time in Social Media?” Is it possible you’re inadvertently committing marketing suicide by doing so?
What do you think? I’d really like to know!
Dr. G 
Glenn Club | Coaching | A to Z Product for Newbies | Advanced Adwords Seminar
{ 30 comments }
Facebook is a useful application delivery platform but, for marketing, much less useful. Where it can be good is to match specific products against user profiles for targeted advertising. For example, I once saw an ad that said “If you like Fleetwood Mac, you’ll love Vandeville Falls”. I responded (because I do like the Mac) and purchased the Vandeville Falls album (brilliant, by the way). It was only some time later that I realised the ad had been triggered by my profile. So, this was one of those rare examples of win-win-win.
Of course, the more ham-fisted ads that simply say things like “great credit card for 44 year old men” have zero influence (on me at least)
Twitter can be a good way to publicise new and genuinely useful products or content but the problem is the amount of effort and time it takes to build up a HIGH QUALITY list of followers. That time and effort would, in my view, be much more effectively spent on an Adwords/Autoresponder campaign.
Both are great fun and occasionally useful but also present dreadful procrastination opportunities.
This may scare you. I have seen this go so really bad for people. A prominent info-marketer took up twitter and started to report on his daily life- wining and dining, gambling and betting, spouting trivial crap…he appeared this real slob and flake. I know several people unsubscribe from his continuity programmes based on his bad use of twitter. Twitter cost him big $$$$
I know people who have made money from Twitter in the UK in unlikely ways. One guy I know was on a train (I don’t think you have those in the US anymore) and posted his status on Twitter this was picked up by a fellow passenger- they sought each other out and led to a $6k profitable business link. They would probably never have met.
This is, of course, the flip side of Social Media Homicide: when you’re out with someone who won’t stop ignoring you and/or the group you’re out with in favor of their cell/PDA. Of course, if anything gets thrown into traffic, it’s hopefully the cell…
Good morning I’ve been learning how this thing of making money on the Internet really works ever since I heard about it. (about 6 months) I understand that it could usually work if you do the proper things. One thing that I have notice is your name along with other, that I have began to trust keeps popping up with good information.
I ‘m in the mist of learning how to create my own web pages or sites. Its there a system that you recommend or endorse where I could better get a grasp on thing while I learn how to build my sites.
Hi Glenn,
I have been following your posts for a while.
As I understand it social media can be leveraged very effectively by joining in with the conversations that your tweet followers or FB fans are already having with each other and also with themselves.
Unlike 15 page long copy it has to be treated like a 15 week courtship ( same as most other marketing I guess ).
Interesting way to start the New Year…
Cheers,
Michael
Interesting idea Glenn which echoes my thoughts.
I think that social media marketing has been over-hyped and many people now recognise it as a huge drain on resources.
I’ve never understood the Twitter policy of “you follow me and I’ll follow you” but I regularly see people following 20,000 or more people.
I can’t keep up with the 250 people I follow so heaven knows what it must be like with 100 times the number.
At Premier Data Solutions, we are developing our Social Media Strategy and I’m already seeing the time resources fly without a real – measurable business plan. With all other Marketing Campaigns, we plan and measure. With SM, I’m told ‘they will come’. I hear the story of Dell selling $6M on Twitter, and I hear stats where 78% of SM ‘noise’ is believable and acted on. As Martin pointed out above, there is certainly the opportunity to shoot yourself FAST so a smart plan/policy is needed. So, for us, the jury is out, but we are planning and implementing. See you on Twitter – HA -
Hi Glenn,
I gave up Twitter awhile back because personally I found it irritating and was becoming a spam haven for everything from Porn to “exciting business opportunities” Plus I grew tired of finding witty things to put on my updates.
Other social media though I find is useful for SEO as well as a good way to build a FREE circle of influence. I don’t tend to try and sell anything through these networks but they do work well as far as staying connected with potential customers at no cost to me. They can be addictive so I tend to not stay on them long and use automation to add new vids and content to the different networks.
Keep up the great work Glenn, I follow you and Perry frequently, main reason…….you tell it like it is. No BS and no false expectations. Making money online and online marketing is a lot of work with no immediate initial results, which is why most fail because they simply get discouraged easily.
Larry Stefanuik
trafficticketguru.com
This is an interesting post. I think that there are good ways to use social media for marketing, but I think even the most savvy of business folks can get caught up in it and forget that they’re talking to customers, not friends. I spent 20 years of my life as a business consultant in the area of employee benefits and one of the first things I was taught is that you do your best to keep off some subjects – most notablly religion and politics – with clients. And, I think that’s especially important now in our hyper political world. I have personally stopped following several of the internet business ‘gurus’ for just this reason – they decided it was ok to spew politcal or religious from their facebook business page. Even if what they said had not personnally offended me, I would have stopped following them anyway as soon as this trend appeared simply because I think it shows a major lack of understanding of the business world and they no longer seem to be folks whose advice I have any interest in following.
I think it’s a mistake to look at Twitter the same way you look at some of the others like Linked In and Facebook.
Linked In is fundamentally an updated contact organizer – the natural evolution of things like Rolodex and programs like Act!. I and most of my business colleagues use it very effectively to make and maintain professional (and sometimes social) contacts. For what I’ve seen it used for at least, it’s extremely time-efficient and effective.
While I’m not a Facebook pro by any means, I’ve got friends who use it for managing much of their life in a way analogous to how I use Linked In. We use it in business as well and it has worked reasonably well. I wouldn’t say it has produced fantastic business results for us but certainly it hasn’t been an obvious time and resource waster.
Twitter is a different story. It does something that is a bit different than the others – delivering spontaneous presence information to all who are interested. Used that way, frankly I don’t get the appeal. However, I don’t get the appeal of Tabloids either and yet they’re very popular.
The one marketing advantage to Twitter that I’ve noted (but not yet tried to use) is that it’s like an active hive mind on various topics. It seems to me that starting or identifying trends with it might be very effective. I strongly suspect though that maintaining those trends would have to be done with tools outside of Twitter.
And if one used Twitter for just socializing, I suspect that’s the dangerous usage Martin mentions in his comment.
That’s my two cents…
So far, I have made several contacts through FB, but not had any real results. I think that watching either FB or Twitter can help you find “conversations” that may be useful in finding a product niche to market to. If you already have a niche/product, you can use the Twitter search site to tune into “conversations” and perhaps get useful input to help.
You can also see what people are saying about you, your product, your brand, your industry, etc.
Marketing on either media seems to be very difficult simply due to the huge number of posts on any given day. That means the chances of your post being seen are really small unless you bombard your followers/friends with messages which then may cause you to lose them.
One potential indirect advantage is that if prospects are checking you out before they buy from you, doing their due diligence, they may check you out on one of the SM sites to see if they can get to “know” you a bit better.
No one searches for what we have to offer on search engines and after 18 months, a bit money and a lot of time we were able to get low cost, good ctr which converted to a %0.
We\’ve been on Linked in for two months and the first month I put more time than PPC. Now I use less and no more than the $50 I invested in the first month. So far we gotten 2 new customers which have more than paid for the time and effort and seem to have future promise.
In our case when they see what we can do and our credentials we have a better chance than trying to turn the corner on PPC.. So far we have had no luck on facebook and we don\’t have time for Twitter. Hope this helps give some perspective.
Good PointQ
Badges used on social web pages I heard help to promote business/products online.
Like sharing these webpages, I like to spread the word to share things of value.
Yes…the hive mind is Twitter\’s power. The plug and play viral message environment we all dream of using – if we have something truly able to go viral (rare). Facebook, from all I have seen, is blocking and tackling…you need a site on this \"other internet\" like you need a Linked In presence on \"that other internet\". But I\’m like Glenn, I don\’t know of anyone who has leveraged the Facebook platform into the core of their business model.
The main advantage of twitter is collecting your personal experts and keeping abreast of whats important in your field. The wonderful thing about Twitter is it forces people to get to the point. The more respectable links and tips you post, the more likely someone will click on what you say. There is no shortcut to this. If you spam me for a product or service, it had better be wrapped in a useful content sandwich. You don’t have to invest the incredible amounts of time, such as facebook. As a research tool twitter is on the forefront.
Searchengineman
Hello Dr. G!
You mention: there ARE a small minority, however, who seem to be leveraging social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook… it’s still not clear to me the exact principles and techniques they’re using which distinguish them from the riff raff… as soon as I can find someone who talks about it clearly and cogently I’ll get them for an interview!
I’ve had tremendous success using Facebook to acquire new massage clients. (I’m a massage therapist.)
I’ve recently written a e-book titled, “Massage Marketing using Facebook,” that’s going to be rolled out in the next day or two.
I’d love to have an interview with you and discuss what techniques I use to distinguish me from the riff-raff
Please contact me if you are interested and thank you for your time!
Kris Kelley
kris.kelley@yahoo.com
http://www.massage-marketing-solutions.com/
Hello Dr. G!
I’ve had tremendous success using Facebook to acquire massage clients (as I’m a massage therapist.)
I’m also putting together an e-book on how to correctly use Facebook to attract clients.
I’d love to have an interview with you and explain my techniques that differentiate me from the riff raff
Please contact me if you are interested.
Kris Kelley
kris.kelley@yahoo.com
http://www.massage-marketing-solutions.com/
Hi Eloy … thanks for your compliments
I went to great effort last year to put together a Blueprint product for Newbies. So of course, this is what I recommend people start with.
Kris (and anyone else who really has had success in social media and can prove it), could you kindly FAX me a 1 page summary outline of what our talk would look like, along with any URLs you’d like me to review in considering the interview? 516-706-0475 (Definitely interested, but I can’t promise to do the interview unless you’ve really got proof because I’ve had so many people SAY they can do it, then get on the interview and have no real evidence or authority… I hope that doesn’t sound too cold, I’m just protecting my list. On the other hand, if you DO have the stuff, this could be some nice exposure for you)
What a great idea … a “Web 2.0 Suicide Machine”. I know we would all be better off if we focused on what mattered instead of looking for the latest “instant fix” or the marketing magic that gave results without effort.
Thanks for reminding us of the need to focus, focus and then focus a bit more. Time chasing rainbows is time away from our core businesses. We are all allowed a fixed amount of time. How we use or misuse it determines our success. Looking for a quick fix is generally a huge waste of time. And all too often we get stuck in the looking stage and never get around to doing the simple, boring things that it takes to be successful.
Thanks Glenn for your insightful, thorough and empowering analysis ,I have some pretty well thought out systems and ideas of how Social media works effectively Im happy to share.
1)Mindset is Paramount. I find that a mindset of generosity; ie considering how to he helpful, impactful, empowering and educational.
I follow a strategy that focuses on aspects described by Cialdini in \"influence\".
great place to work on rapport, consistency, commitment, reciprocity, scarcity, authority, etc.
2)Social media is great for testing headlines and response to given words. tracking links like budurl.com and hootsuite allow you to see how much a post is clicked through, referrers, ip addresses, time/dates. also twitter mindset limitation of 140 characters can get people thinking \"economy of language\" in ways that build their skills for adwords (without the bill to google when you mess up)
3)syndication and multipurposing. Social media tools allow you to spread the message and content to multiple channels once you have created the content. ping.fm, tubemogul, friendfeed, postlater all allow you to leverage the persuasive and the seo effect of each of the posts.
4) targeting/profiling of prospects and followers by their geography, psychology, linguistics, nlp modality (visual, auditory, kinesthetic,etc), keyword discussions, power of their network, interests are all possible with free or almost free tools. excellent research tools if you know where to look and what questions to ask
5)social media is just a small part of the system. having social media links through your offline advertising encourages no risk connection.
little steps.
makes the offline more powerful,
trackable and
profitable.
I even have a cool little widget on my blog from Google voice that lets people click to call me for free and easy. thats kinda social media.
6) its not about big numbers, its about persuasion and effectiveness. the 80/20 of the 80/20 rule applies here too. better to have a great online relationship with the top 20% of the top 20% in a market than to have a \"legion of masses\" built by autopilot interruption and annoyance.
Social media is better as a strategy than a diversion.
Connection builds rapport
which builds and earns trust,
which leads to conversation,
collaboration leads to profits.
I have some great case studies where i used twitter for the $2500 headline that got me a personally signed Fender strat from ZZ Top Billy Gibbons through tweeting with DM Scott of webinknow.com. the cool factor.
Another Twitter case study had me impressing Persuasion expert Dave Lakhani and driving hundreds (?700+) of new users to him to say \"i found and followed you through @blissfulfun\", that case got me invited to his $3500 profitable speaker seminar where I spoke on social media.
I have a short video that explains more of the social media system details on a cool mindmap called the Mom and pop mindset.
check out the blog at http://Generositymarketing.com and leave a comment if you want me to mail you the pdf mindmap.
thank you Glenn
Bryan Bliss
@blissfulfun on twitter
I think Twitter is going to be purchased by another company this year. Just a hunch.
I think all the social networking sites were intended for social networking. They were never created or intended to be instruments of marketing. They were created so humans could interact, dialogue, and hopefully develop meaningful relationships. I think most folks are ok with discovering something else about a friend of theirs(O look, Bob is into selling watchamacalits)! And, they might even go ahead and purchase one of those watchamacalits from Bob…But, they don\’t want their social networking to be infiltrated by marketing people who think they are being clever. You don\’t want to invite a friend over for a meal and half way through the night he says, \"Oh by they by, have you looked into an investment product for your retirement, Bob?\" No, you want Bob to share meaningfully from his life, not his latest marketing idea. So, my humble suggestion is we let Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and the others do what they were intended to do and not what we want them to do.
Hi Dr. G:
Somehow I am under impression that marketers in health care field have a bit better odds of using social media successfully. I am not surprised that Kris as a massage therapist can acquire clients that way. This can be for several reasons: many health care professionals are regulated. They need a license to practice. It is easy to check is someone is a registered nurse/dietitian/massage therapist. Is things go wrong…there is a place to send complaints. Being a regulated health professional myself, it is my belief that among health care professionals there is more accountability, professional practice behaviors as well as genuine desire to help others. All those factors can help establish trust with clients.
Things are harder for people who are into make-money/internet marketing niche. You really don\’t need any qualifications nor any formal credentials. People could get away with fake testimonials, fake blogs, poor customer support…etc…There is a lot of spam as well as false promises. Putting out Facebook profile and tweeting all day does nothing to get me to trust someone in this niche.
I have been learning internet marketing for almost a year and my strongly developed \’anti-BS antennas\’ detected Parry Marshall as a first trustworthy person who I came across on internet. Through his amazing story telling technique in his emails he manages to convince me that joining Glenn\’s hyper-responsive club and buying Blueprint Product for Newbies was worth the investment. And he was right.
My conclusion is that internet marketers should use Facebook/Twitter to connect with other trustworthy people in this industry and then help each other build their business as well as market products through their lists.
Maria
Every business and each Social Media site requires a different strategy. Social Networking sites like StumbleUpon and search tools for Twitter like Twellow and FeelTipTop make them good places to locate and connect with others interested in what you do. You can often contact someone on Twitter easier than you can reach them anywhere else.
LinkedIn is best for connecting with businesses, consultants, and even CEOs of major corporations. The larger and more traditional the business, the more important LinkedIn can be. It is also effective for finding like-minded people and those with specific expertise or knowledge.
Many people probably don’t realize how they will be perceived by potential clients or buyers. They need to get input from anyone that will tell them the truth. A very large percentage of people will immediately tune out when offended – and what offends someone can be something you might consider perfectly normal or mainstream.
You can not reach all audiences. You can avoid behaviors and topics that might offend others or just know that some won’t be interested in what you have to share and not worry about it. Businesses can consider having multiple people or personas active in Social Networking who each reach different groups (and businesses need to develop Social Media guidelines and policies).
Very informal types might not realize that many are offended by profanity, sexual references, or off-color jokes. No matter how badly people behave on television or in movies that does not mean it is socially acceptable. You WILL be judged on what you write and share.
I highly recommend Tamar Weinberg’s book The New Community Rules as a primer for how to get started, what pitfalls to avoid, and as much what not to do as what works – although she shares many methods that DO work too.
Twitter has its uses, but I don’t have the time to tweet all day. Others seem to have that luxury. I also don’t think that everything I do is interesting so that reduces my twittering subject options even more.
My tweets are usually SEO tips and links to helpful articles on that subject. Unfortunately, I’ve actually gotten tweets putting me down for being a ‘bot’ and I’ve been told that they’re not interested in my ‘advice’. No sales pitches in my tweets, purely straight content, so I’m not sure what the problem was. I persevere, though. Don’t find it to be much of a business tool for me, though. It’s mostly for small talk and that has its uses and purposes.
While social media always seemed promising, it seems to demand too much time and energy.
Plus there is a difference between socializing and social marketing though subtle. You need to sell without appearing irritating or pushy.
I am yet to learn the art. I have planned increased social media use this year. I have given myself 6 months before I decide to continue or quit.
Great post, Glenn….interesting to hear of the Suicide Machine. I find myself spending too much time on Twitter and Facebook myself, and wonder (since it’s so hard to tell, at least for me it is) whether that is time well spent or not. There are some great comments already about that issue, so thanks, everyone!
-Jeff Navarro
I’ve found Twitter to occasionally be of interest but only when my account was niche-specific. Once I – inevitably – broadened it, it has just become “too much information”.
Hey Doc,
I found your site about 1 month ago and I gotta tell you I absolutely love it. Zero fluff and you cut right to the chase with wit and clarity. Keep up the awesome work. As for my SM plan i started trying to use it about 1 year ago. I have read over 20 books on it and have tried several hundred strategies from getting targeted followers to automation and best practices. Over all I think I have gotten very little out of it in terms of time and $ spent on it. I have gotten some sales. Ive found if you basically treat your SM accounts like your email lists and give them tons of value and respond once in awhile to their questions and ask people questions then you build relationships and can later leverage into sales.
I could not agree more strongly. I advise small businesses on internet marketing and content, and am constantly talking people down from thinking they need a big social media presence. The question that seems to shake them back into reality is “What would be a better use of your time: spending 20 minutes a day Tweeting, or spending that time calling customers/clients you have not heard from or gotten business from in the last 2-3 months?”
The real issue here is to understand the difference between a social media presence and social media marketing. A social media presence means you have accounts at all the big social media sites, and you have social media buttons and widgets on your site, but you do not spend time actively contributing to those communities. Social media marketing is when you do spend time tweeting and liking and pinning things several times a week or every day.
In terms of SEO, there are clear benefits for having a social media presence (like a Google+ page), but few business owners have the time or should spend the time actively doing social media, or even having someone else do it for them. Instead, go make your business/product/skills better. Add more great content to your site. Figure out how to get more money out of your existing customers while you make them love you even more. That’s a good use of time.
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