The Social Media Networking Meltdown…it isn’t the technology that matters…
Before I launch into this, know that I do use Twitter. I come across all sorts of cool websites and links. I can keep up with the folks that I enjoy to read. I am a “member” in some pretty cool twitter tribes. I also share links and websites and sometimes participate in 140 character discussions that others may or may not find interesting….
Once upon a time, a long time ago……
…before Myspace, Facebook, Digg, Propellor, Twitter, Ning, YouTube, flickr and the countless other copycat social media platforms…..
…before delici.us, magnolia, reddit and the thousands of similar bookmark sharing sites…
…before web2.0, 3.0, blogs, micro-blogs, content media systems, ect….
…social media marketing was called something completely different….
…it was called…Word of Mouth Marketing….
…and this is where this post begins….
I am going to come out and say it. Everyone talks about Social Media as if it was just some recent invention that is supposed to somehow magically propel a virtual unknown marketer into instant fame and fortune.
There are now little mini-industries where someone is willing to show you how to make money with twitter, facebook or myspace (for a fee).
There are “gurus” who want to teach you how to make the most of twitter and secret blueprints to make money online using these platforms. I actually recently saw a report that wanted to teach you “step by step” how to get 2,000+ twitter followers in a week (it ain’t hard, by the way).
People have jumped on this hot potato twitter train thinking that it is going to be much easier than the more traditional forms of marketing.
But, the truth is this form of marketing has been around probably since the first man was able to tell another man where he could go to learn how to start a fire.
Social Media Networking = Word of Mouth Marketing
Social Media Marketing is nothing more than a buzzword to make it sound NEW…
Back 10 years ago, when I accidentally and unknowingly walked into a career online, I was doing “social media marketing” without knowing it. I was in a niche (which I won’t mention) and was a regular at several forums. I discussed freely my opinions (which, if you haven’t noticed, I have a ton of them), got into friendly debates and passed out information that I thought was helpful or a resource for someone just starting out.
I built a site (it was a website builder site..I didn’t know HTML) and delivered content daily. It didn’t take long for me to establish a fan base even though it really wasn’t my main intention. My site grew, yada, yada, yada and before I knew it, I had people emailing me and telling me how awesome cool I was and how they reached my site through a link on a forum/site/referred by a friend…..
…you get the picture…..
So looking at the story above, can you tell me what the difference is between what I was doing 10 years ago (pre-”web2.0″) and what is going on now?
The aim is the same as it ever was….we want people to like us, our product, our brand, whatever. We want people to like us so much that they will take a moment from their busy schedules and recognize our efforts by telling their friends about us.
There is a difference. But it is harder to see because most of us are neck deep trying to build our facebook friends and counting our twitter followers as if it is money in the bank….
The difference between today and a decade ago is that there is an increasing gap between real engagement and discussions with REAL people who are actually interested in you and the dis-engagement social networking model that so many marketers teach…..Isn’t Engagement Supposed to be a 2-way Street???
Is Social Networking good for business?
“There are two kinds of networking of giving your business card out to lots of people, showing up at alot of cocktail parties, friending a lot of people on Facebook, counting how many people follow you on twitter…that’s worthless…
it is worthless in the real world and it is worthless in the online world….
..the networking that matters is helping people achieve their goals..doing it reliably and repeatably so that over time, people have an interest in helping you achieve YOUR goals cause they have a stake in it..
…you can do it online by leading people..by connecting people…by giving people assess the resources and the information they need because then..over time…they’ll do the same for you…..you’re not doing it for the punchline..you are doing it because the ACT of it is so beneficial..
…What I really don’t like online is the superficial networking that all the thousands of people who start friending everybody else…WHY???…it doesn’t account for anything…it is just a waste of time..”
Seth Godin
Twitter and Twitter Followers- You follow me, I follow You?……
I ran into an interesting video from another marketer name Perry Belcher. Perry was unhappy that the likes of online personalities like Kevin Rose, who has 70,000+ followers and doesn’t reciprocate by following his followers back. He has termed Kevin as being a “twitter snob”. To Perry, this is the equivilant of introducing yourself at a party and them simply turning away. To use his words, he thinks that they are “assholes”.
Kevin Rose, Matt Cutts, Rand Fishkin, Jason Moffatt, GrayWolf, Frank Kern, Tim Ferris…these would be the Twitter “snob” types that Perry loathes.
All of these guys have thousands of people who follow them but very few that they follow. And their followers follow them (for the most part) because they have something that their followers want, whether this is information or something else. Their followers don’t really care if they don’t reciprocate. They are just happy to be a part of their tribe and listen to what these guys say.
In Perry’s world, everyone would follow everyone….and in most cases, most people do follow those that are following them…and that is the inherent problem with using Twitter and other social platforms from a marketing standpoint.
The problem with Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms and using them as a marketing vehicle…
Twitter, to me at least, is nothing more than a culmination of like minded people who all form a ring or a tribe online. You are the leader of your Twitter tribe. Under ideal circumstances, those that follow you are following you because they find you interesting. They follow you because they really want to know what you have to say….
But the reality is, if you are like most marketers, your Twitter tribe is really not your tribe at all. At best, your tribe is nothing more than thousands of other individuals hoping to get your attention.
They aren’t following you because they like you….
They aren’t following you because you interest them…
They aren’t following you because they want to get to know you...
In all probability, they found you through twitter search or a twitter cloud or through someone else’s twitter followers. In a lot of cases, these people will “unfollow” you just as quickly once they realize you won’t follow them back. Most people who follow you couldn’t care less about what you have to say.
Why?
Because they are more interested in what they want to tell you. They have a vested interest not so much in seeing YOU succeed. You are nothing more than a vehicle for them to (hopefully) rise in the ranks.
Unfortunately for them, the thousands that are following each other are following for precisely the same reasons why they want YOU to follow them…..
Sorry for the sarcasm and the cynical viewpoint but networking to get your message out is one thing…but blasting your twitter network with your new things isn’t exactly the definition of engaging, right?
So, let’s take a look at one of these influencers. You tell me which position you would like to be…
Frank Kern vs. Perry Belcher…
Perry Belcher’s Tribe- 50,000+ Followers, 49,000+ People he is following …
Frank Kern’s Tribe- 10,000+ Followers, less than 100 people he is following…
Who wins here?
Who gets heard more often (or more importantly…who gets listened to?)
Of the two, which will produce more results from a single tweet?
I don’t know about you, but I would bet that Frank’s followers (who are 40,000 less than Perry’s) would still out read, out click and out discuss Perry’s tweets any day.
Frank wins because he is using twitter as it was intended. He isn’t collecting followers and reciprocating just because. He has people searching him out and following him. As for the people he is following? Yeah…you can pretty much guess that he considers them important and probably listens to what they have to say.
The New Social Networking Tools….What Model is the Most Effective?
You may notice that I am not talking so much about social media being a branding tool (which it is). The reason why I don’t mention this is because most internet marketers use it more for a networking tool….they are searching for a potential audience to sell things to….
Real engagement…..what is it and how can you engage the masses in a way that your message is not only heard but you get engaged back?
This question is coming from an old school marketer who has always engaged via email, the phone and chat. The ironies of the new social media tools make it so you easy for someone to “follow” you, become your “friend” or whatever that there is nothing at stake for your followers…..
They don’t have to believe you…
They don’t have to want to know you…
And because of this, your message to them is worthless and meaningless…
At least with permission marketing, your “follower” had to jump through some type of a hoop (double opt-in) in order to join your club, right?
So what if you aren’t a Frank Kern…a Kevin Rose….a Darren Rouse? How on earth are you supposed to go from someone like a normal marketer (aka…anyone that is not like Frank Kern, Kevin Rose, ect.) and expand your reach?
Is it a slow process?
Or do you do like Perry Belcher does and just start adding friends and followers and hope that a few will stick around and become part of the real tribe?
What are your personal experiences? Do you just add someone because they have added you? Is there a real sense of engagement?
The reality is nothing has changed…It was the Same 10 years ago…it will be the same 10 years from now…
This is for all of you who have attached your wagon to the twitter and facebook star.
The reality is that in order to build your “tribe” (and I mean a real tribe…not the numbers you see on your social media accounts), a couple things need to happen.
- You have to have either something that people want or be in a place where people wish they could be…or both- People follow ShoeMoney and the John Chow types because they see the checks and think that they by reading their site, it will rub off on them. They read Darren Rouse not because of how “great” he is but because he is at the top of the mountain as far as blogging is concerned. They don’t follow Frank Kern because he is that great…they follow him because they are hoping that he will impart some scrap of valuable information that will help them become more like him…rich….you get the picture…
- You have to have a believable story- Tim Ferris’ story is intriguing to a lot of people because of his accomplishments and the fact that he really doesn’t have a home…he just jet sets all across the world and people can live vicariously though him and his adventures. The typical “make money” marketer thinks that the typical “I made $xxx,xxx of money a year will woo the masses into a followership. It is a boring storing that everyone has heard before. It is too generic to really stick.
I have read on several sites that give rules as to what you should and shouldn’t promote on these social media platforms. I have seen things like “you shouldn’t promote your own sites..”, “you should promote yourself 10% of the time and other things 90% of the time”, ect.
And while this rule may apply to those of us who have masses of followers that are following us because we are following them, does this apply to the big boys of twitter and facebook? I would suspect not.
Remember, if you can manage to tell a believable story and you have something that people want or want to be like, then all bets are off. After all, when you a run a tribe, there are no universal rules…just YOUR rules.
You can have anything in the world you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want….
Zig Ziglar
The hard part about making social platforms work for you is getting people to actually perk up their ears and start noticing you in the first place. You can make a million friends and followers but if no one is interested in what you have to say, ie. they are following back because you are following them, then your time spent attaining them is pretty much useless.
Finish this story for me…..
What do you do in regards to gaining a following? Are you using Social Media to network and how is it working for you? Do you actively respond to all of your followers and friends or do you find yourself gravitating to a handful of people that you find a common ground?
Other Articles around the net that you may find interesting…
The Life and Times of a Twitter Link
Photo Attribution-Meltdown
8 Responses to “The Social Media Networking Meltdown…it isn’t the technology that matters…”
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Social media networking makes me crazy. I've tried MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, and it's just like you said: mostly a lot of people trying to sell you something. And since I hate people wanting to be "friends" with me so they can make a sale, I don't want to do it to them either.
So, I'm about to bail on the whole thing. If people are interested in my fiction site or my self improvement site they can interact with me there. I'm thrilled to hear from them. But I hate this whole idea of becoming fake friends with everybody in cyberspace.
Thanks for this post, Leo. Well done.
Thank Robert. I personally believe that social networking across these types of platforms could work. But the one thing I have noticed is that those that already have established tribes outside of the social networks are able to proliferate a lot easier. After all, if you already have a following, it would make sense to migrate them to a micro-blog platform and make it possibly more intimate?
As for the majority of tweet heads, the follower numbers are nothing more than a mirage that they are actually doing something….
just my opinion at any rate…
I agree that if you have an interesting story, social media can help catapult you in some ways. I still believe that building a real business takes time and should be a long term strategy. I find that many people think using social media is the fastest way to make a quick buck because it is all the rage.
I will admit that before I got really serious about making money online, I too got caught up in the hype. The problem is that everyone wants to teach you how to make money online by using whatever avenue that can get your attention. That is why social media is being used improperly.
If you think about it, there is only a small percentage of people who become successful online. This means that the masses are still trying to be successful, which leads them to try any an everything they can to make it. Savvy marketers take that vulnerability of the masses and uses it to their advantage. That is how you get all the people using these platforms the wrong way.
I actually love twitter, facebook, etc. because they allow me to interact with people in a way that is very efficient for me. I believe it should be used exactly as intended, to be social. If you really think about what social means, then it all makes sense. That is why it is called social media.
Hey Tommie….thanks for the input. I totally agree…
The Kern vs. Belcher question… Frank and Perry are doing different things online. Both marketers, but not using the same strategies. There are just too many variables that aren't controlled in that comparison.
I advocate social media as a learning tool, not a marketing tool. When I get on Twitter, I'm not there to push any offers, affiliate links, my own products, etc. I'm there to hear from other people, other marketers, new sources, and friends. That's what works for me, and your mileage may vary. But inevitably people are going to try to use sites like Twitter purely for profit. The community will react to those folks appropriately (who's this asshole selling Mary Kay at my party?).
Hey Reuben, Thanks for stopping by (and I will be seeing you tomorrow at the social media conference). I understand that they are using different strategies and that is my point exactly. Kern would be okay without social media….social media is just an easy way for him to connect to his people, right? Perry, on the other hand, would have a hard time using his strategy today if twitter suddenly went away because that is the only way he is connecting. I am not dissing his strategy but am stating the obvious.
And personally, I think that following an insane number of people (like 50,000 for instance) is not really an exercise in "connection" or engagement. Then again that is only my opinion and I am sure many people would disagree.
Leo, you must have had much more experience than me in all aspects of making money on the internet, but from what I tried, I find that being active on facebook is somewhat a waste of time in building relationships.
I find that commenting with value on lower popular blogs and forums yields somewhat better results.
To be honest i havent tried these social media sites… my mom received a spam message from facebook telling her that she has a new message on facebook when she didint even have an account, and she didint even know what facebook even was… facebook spammed her. I signed up for twitter, within a day, they spammed my inbox with dozens of messages in my inbox.. blocked them.
And I dont want to send any traffic either from my site to any social sites, if they wanna folow me, they will via rss or email. Wont be sending any free traffic to them.
The KEY I think to make money on those is to automate adding friends/followers, set up dozens of accounts with a program to automate adding while you sleep and do seo, then spam the heck out of these accounts.
Untargeted traffic dosent matter in my opinion, so long as it is automated. Reffering to another post of yours, you might have an affiliate sale for 50 visitors only on a very targeted online classifieds site, or perhaps the same 1 affiliate sale from 5 or 10′000 followers, dosent matter to those 9 999 spammed users in my opinion. Would rather do blog and forum commenting to supply guest posting and article marketing…cya leo!
Oh yea, and facebook spammed my mom with a fake “you received a new message” when she didint know what facebook was …
wont ever send traffic to those scallywags, if i make any money for twitter or facebook, it will be with mass spamming their users my friend… have a cold one!