I am constantly working on how to increase the visibility of my company and I came across something that said to participate in social media last. This was the first I had heard of social media marketing being put into a place that you do after everything else is really really good.
Marketers are often tasked with getting followers, getting likes, getting engagement on social. I get it – it looks really awesome when you have all of these things going for you and management likes it. There is a sense that awareness is growing, inbound leads will follow and you are ‘killing it’. But how important is social media anyways?
Here is where I can throw out impressive numbers like how many people login to Facebook everyday, how people watch YouTube videos and how many people are pinning pins that you competitors posted. Is this enough to warrant you spending time here vs. somewhere else?
If you answer yes to any of the following, you should take a step back and consider what else you could be doing IF you did not participate in social media right now.
1. Our competitors are on Facebook so we need to be
2. We have video content so we should have a YouTube channel
3. We should do Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and LinkedIn because I think those are the most popular
4. We just post and share our content and gets tons of visibility
5. It won’t take too much time to maintain
TIP: You don't need social media to grow your business. You don't need to go to every trade show. You don't need to do whatever you feel the industry expects you to do. Take a step back and really examine the time:return.