“BUT I DON’T WANT TO!” Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve heard ALL the excuses as to why someone says they can’t do social media…literally, all of them. I don’t have time. I don’t have anything to say that anyone cares about. I don’t care what other people have to say. Social media is too complicated. I don’t understand it. It isn’t relevant to MY industry, but I get why it makes sense for EVERYONE else’s. My kids understand it better than I do and it’s just so frustrating. My clientele is too old to be using any type of social media outlet, like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. My dog ate my social media.
Enough with the excuses already!!! I wish I could use the parental stand-by and say “Do it. Because I said so.” But since that won’t work…let’s talk fact.
As of the moment that I’m writing this blog, there are 5,367,117 people on Twitter. There are over 12 million professional users using LinkedIn. I just tried to find out how many people are on Facebook, and I’m not sure anyone really knows, other than to say A LOT—I am seeing numbers around 410 million, some higher, some lower. There are approximately 400 million people in North America…not just in the US—all of North America.
Let’s just say for examples sake, I am extremely busy (okay, is that an “example” for anyone?), and I own a company but I’m a one-man show. To make it interesting, let’s say it’s a fairly obscure company—I breed and sell horses. I personally know nothing about horses…so if I say anything ridiculous about this, please forgive my ignorance…
If I told you that you could get your name in front of people who are actively looking for horses…how many people does that need to be for it to be worth your while? One? Ten? One hundred? 5 million? 410 million?
Just to give you an idea, I jumped over to Facebook while I was writing this and searched “Horse Sale” and I found a livestock company with 1300 fans…would you be a fan of a company that gave you poor service, or in this case, a poor horse? Looking at their fan page, I can see “testimonials” from past clients—from last month, all the way back…months!
Now, like I said, I know nothing about horses or where to buy them in Fort Wayne. So if I did want to buy a horse (I do not)—social media is probably where I’d start. Not necessarily just searching for a company, right off the bat. But I might go on Twitter and say “Anyone in Fort Wayne area know where I can buy a horse?” I’m sure people are going to reply with companies I should and shouldn’t go to—along with links to their websites or social media pages. And, if I have to Google them and find their social media feeds or the website—that’s okay, I’m going to look you up before I spend money on something like that.
Do you look things up before you make a large purchase or hire a service company? I do—every time. You can find anything online, including reviews, and if I need to spend money with you, I want you to prove to me you are legit and others have been happy using your company. Search engines now return social media results in the normal results. When I just Googled a local company, I got their website and their last few Facebook and Twitter results in my results listing.
To all you who say your clientele is too “old” to be using any type of social media, let alone assuming they don’t know what social media even is—you know what they say when you assume… Just this weekend, I was at a concert in Fort Wayne and the MC came up to the mic and said “Now, for all you young folks on Facebook and Twitter, follow us by going to #bandname.” My dad was with me, who happens to be on both Facebook AND Twitter—and he looked at me and said, “Young people?” Dad, don’t kill me, you’re not THAT old…(kidding, he’s really not) Many of my friends parents AND grandparents are on several social media outlets simply because their kids and grandkids are…gotta keep tabs on us somehow, right? All joking aside, they are not online just to stalk our busy daily activities—they are using it too, sometimes more than normal because they’re retired and have time to do it. It may not be the norm yet, but we’re getting there—social media is growing for a reason. In fact, the fastest growing market on Facebook is women, aged 55 and older. According to one poll I saw, over 50% of all social media users are over the age of 35, with most being over 45 (*disclaimer: I do not think 35 OR 45 is old, please don’t hurt me!). My point is not to say you should market everything to the older crowds, but don’t discount them either.
If spending a few minutes to create a Facebook fan page, LinkedIn profile or a Twitter account—and updating each maybe a few times each week is too time consuming—please weigh the potential benefits with the least amount of effort. Would it be great if you could push news as frequently as Fox does? Sure, but that isn’t realistic. It doesn’t have to be too time consuming…even ten minutes a day—shoot, ten minutes a week if you’re doing nothing currently. You can find time for that, even if you got one new client in a year, for ten minutes a week? That’s 8 ½ hours over a year—one work day. Seems worth it to me. You could have set up a few social media accounts in the time it’s taken to read this blog.
If you don’t understand social media or don’t care to, call your kids—they’d probably be able to do it pretty quickly. Call your grandkids, they can probably do it even faster. Call Cirrus, we can help you with the strategy. Sorry to step on Nike’s toes, but JUST DO IT. And keep Rex away from your computer.
Amen! Well Said…