Who’s got time for Social Media?

What these ever so cheerful Social Media geeks always forget is; we run a business, and if I had a few hours spare a week I would go and try and remind my kids who I am, yes remember me , I am the one you will look like when you are this age , sorry!

There is a defining moment whenever I meet prospective clients; just after I have helped them to see how important this ‘social media malarkey’ actually is for their business, then there is what I call the ‘drift off phase,’ you can see when someone is looking at you, but their mind is involved on a completely different challenge;

“Shoot, shoot, shoot, a few hours a week, dammit, oh er, who can I find? Oh shoot.”

When you first started to visualise your business, do you remember how many personal mind maps you scribbled on paper? Do you remember how sometimes your partner pulled you up to stop boring people with how you were going to take over the world? Your business idea was like a jungle taking over your mind, and if you gave it your full attention, more spectacular ideas come out that will grow this side of the business and that side etc. You could never in a month of Sundays, explain all this to someone else and have them be 100% as excited as you are, Do you remember?

Well now your business has legs, and is profitable, and you have made it mainly due to your excitement and passion which is enough to carry your business through to the day you take your foot off the gas and go see those twenty something year old people who were once your babies, to give them the time and attention you always promised, except that they are grown up now, they are giving their time and attention to their own family, oh well grandkids yeehaa!

So here is the Paradigm you have to face; Social Media is a part of any successful business these days, love it or hate it you got to do it, now back to our potential client and let’s join his reverie for a moment, Who is he going to outsource to? This can be likened to that sad uncertain moment when a woman goes back to work and on the first day; hands over her baby to the Nanny, no matter how much time they have spent educating the new surrogate, this baby is now in the hands of another, and will start to do things their way.

Like when a father eventually retires from a successful business and leaves it in the hands of the sons, they will continue but it will always be different, what’s the old saying?; Grandfather builds a business, Dad runs the business for as long as he really has the passion for, and the grandsons sell it off and buy Mercedes cars with it!

Sad part is; your business is your creation, you are the business, and your passion made it what it is, and no matter how much outsourcing you do, others will have their spin on it, and change it slightly and sometimes that slight change is enough to throw it off to a completely different track to failure!

It is exactly the same on Social media this is why you create a profile first, and from there you open businesses on social media with your name. Unlike years ago, you could open a business and the business took on a persona of its own, for example who owns Marks and Spencer? Who owns BP? But now you, as a real person, will always be attached to your social media as the owner. It does not take much digging to get right to the top hierarchy of any business using social media  to find out who the real boss is, and who the buck stops with!

If you run a business you will always take a massive risk outsourcing any part of the marketing of your business to someone else, even spouses and your kids have a different view of things, and they may not share your undying passion, which is always the massive one ingredient that is essential to success, let alone employees who are earning a fraction of what you are earning, or worse than that some contractors on the sub-continent who will run you off 5 blogs for $20, they really understand your business eh!

Consistency has always been another massive ingredient to your success, you know that by being consistently there for your clients, consistently over delivering, consistently marketing your product has been a massive part of your success, so now with social media it is no different, the biggest mistake businesses make is exploding all over social media for a few days a month, then disappearing for months only to come back and burst on to the scene again, then they blame social media as over hyped and full of the wrong target market.

I train all my clients to write a blog, which is an extension of themselves, which has their core beliefs and passion threaded through the lines, it is personable and relatable, so people feel they know you, and is also full of great tips and information that will set you apart from anyone else in your industry, making you the one they turn too when the time comes, then to share this blog to the top social media sites and to pay for some of it to get maximum exposure. Time taken; two hours a week, every week as your bare minimum. Time management perhaps, another blog for another day. But if you really try, you will find it!

Now for something as important as social media which is basically telling people why you are in business and why people should buy from you, I don’t think you should outsource to anyone else not even your alter ego, because if you fall asleep when the baby is near the fire, the unthinkable can happen!

Netmedia are the owners of the Biz-find franchise, we train companies in Social Media management all across South East Asia, we also consult on how to sell effectively through our biz-find brand and how to find fresh business leads through our websites, we have written over 1,800 blogs to date and have around 50,000 people on our social media, want to learn how to do this for your business? Then contact Biz-find