24
Jul
2009
Posted by Charles Heflin as social media marketing

Do you like hanging out on Twitter or Facebook working endless hours to attract new business prospects?
Do you like “hangin out” and letting people know every intimiate detail of your life?
Do you like making small talk with hundreds of people every day in hope that some of them will filter into your sales funnel somehow?
There is no denying that social networking works but at the same time it is EXTREMELY inefficient, un-trackable, and unpredictable. How many hours do you spend building/networking with Twitter followers, Facebook friends and the like? What is your goal in all this?
Recently Perry Belcher hosted the world’s largest webinar (to date) where he taught people his strategy. Perry took us on an adventure into being a social butterfly to establish a name for ourselves. Perry used over-hyped claims to attract an audience… It worked.
The problem is that the model he was sharing cannot work for every business and personality type. He also failed to mention how tedious the process is… He made it sound very easy… It’s not.
I tried all this social stuff, this networking, this schmoozing… I told people what I ate for lunch and built up followers by sharing pictures and videos and all that jazz. Perry is right, the process does work but later I found that it was the most inefficient use of my time.
I could have quadrupled my output and received much more business if I had been anti-social. And I don’t mean antisocial as described by the American Psychiatric Association … I mean anti-social as in forgetting about all this social schmoozing and taking a completely different approach.
More often than not my prospects say something like … “I don’t want to get into all this Tweeting and Facebooking… I just want to run my business”.
I hear you! … I don’t like all that stuff either. You see most people use social networking the wrong way and others, like Perry Belcher, teach people to do it the long and hard way.
Well, I shouldn’t say it’s wrong (it works) but it is a long hard road that you DO NOT need to go down… You can build much larger and faster with less effort by being anti-social.
In other words, you can utilize social media by ignoring the “networking” bits and focus on marketing leverage instead.
I’m not hating on Perry he does a good job at what he does and has the ability to teach others to do the same. All I am saying is that it is highly inefficient. Why spend 40 hours a week (or more) networking with “potential” prospects when you could spend that same time networking with “actual” prospects?
Why spend your time building Twitter and Facebook followers when you could spend your time optimizing your sales funnel, polishing up a new blog post and networking with “real” prospects?
Most people spend 90% of their time marketing and 10% of their time nurturing their business message. This is backwards.
Why not spend 90% of your time moving prospects into cutomers, enhancing your web presence and nurturing customers for repeat sales?
The answer is simple… You have not found your leverage point yet. You know, that single thing you can do that will reduce your marketing time from 90% down to 20%, then 10%, etc.
Marketing is no buisness… Marketing itself is a tool to grow a business, never forget that.
With this understanding in place what can you do to leverage your time, effort and money to market your business most efficiently?
Simple … Stop using social media for networking and start using it for marketing. By marketing I DO NOT mean selling inside of social networks. I mean start using social networks to market and distribute your content.
After all it’s your content (text, audio, video) that will attract your prospects and lead them into your sales funnel right? The goal should be content distribution, syndication and propagation across the web… right?
After all there are only 3 sources of traffic online. Social networks, search engines and advertising… What are you going after with all that social schmoozing anyways?
Here’s the leverage point… Content syndication, distribution and propagation (spreading). Your job is to empower other people to do this work for you. Instead of schmoozing, how about empowering people to push your content all over the web instead?
This will handle all of your (non paid) marketing (SEO included) …. Focus on building a content syndication network. Gather a group of people who share the same goal, network with THOSE people and build a syndication group.
For example, start a Facebook group and call it something like “The Syndication Club” … Promote the club where every member does promotional work for every other member… In exchange they get promotional work done for them. After all, that’s what all the schmoozing is leading to anyways right? … Cut to the chase already.
There are many ways to do this same thing … You MUST build a group of people who share the same goals you have (marketing) and then come to an agreement that you will all spend 10% of your time bookmarking, sharing, re-tweeting, digging, voting and commenting on each others good content.
This will increase your search engine visibility, increase your search engine rankings, raise the visibility of your content in social channels and lead more people into your sales funnel. You empower others to do the tasks that make this happen for you automatically.
You all come to an agreement to spend 10% of your time doing unto others so they can do unto you. The reward? … Now you can spend 90% of your time buidling new content, enhancing your web presence, networking with prospects and building customers. Your marketing is handled… Leverage!
I will part in saying that this is not theory. I use it to promote my content. I will use it to promote this blog post. I will rank higher in the search engines and my exposure will grow a bit more as a result. This is my anti-social approach to social media. It works every time without fail.
Here are some examples…
I did not use my content syndication network on my previous blog post.
I used it on the one before that
Notice the HUGE difference in blog comments and re-tweets, incoming links, etc. Dig in and take a real look.
Empower a group to become your marketing partners in the anti-social approach. I did it, you can too… It works.
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19 Responses
Leo Dimilo
July 24th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
1Hey Charles,
We must be on the same plane of thought because I wrote something that pretty much asked the same question yesterday. However, your idea of leveraging social media is something that I should’ve *thunk* about….
Very interesting indeed…I think my hamster in my head is turning…
BiocutisBlog
July 24th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
2I can totally relate!! Sure Facebook and Twitter are great social medians but who has the time for that kind of socializing not to mention building up the principle base. I love the syndication program that you’re talking about. It gives results with a fraction of the time spent - the new era of marketing has arrived.
Charles Heflin
July 24th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
3Hey Leo,
Yes, I think more and more people are beginning to jump off the social media hamster wheel because they are more able to clearly see the dynamics at play. Especially if they have been doing it for some time with limited success while the rest of their web efforts suffer as a consequence.
Thank you for stopping by and commenting.
Rob Sellen
July 24th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
4Hey Charles,
Another good straight to the point post?
I see some people are doing what you say here, I have noticed it in the last few weeks on places.
I blogged about it, as the link to my blog shows here, finding a balance is important yet it’s not easy like some make it out to be.
I am struggling myself to find a balance that works for me, to be honest people don’t seem to share anything of mine, so I must be wasting my time with it.
Rob
Anonymous
July 24th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
5Charles,
I read yr blog often and respect yr thoughts and ideas. So, this is really more of an FYI: Google Perry belcher. There is a reason he is not “main stream” heavier hitter in the industry. He is a convicted felon of computer fraud and recently. He uses social media to gather more people to con. Very disturbing he hosted the largest webinar. All those attendees just gave him their information.
Anna
July 24th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
6I needed to read that. I actually feel like I’ve been swimming in all the zillions of tasks to do and I do feel like it would be great if I could just focus more on my content and less on promotion. I can never get enough done.
II understood your general idea before (and have been meaning to read your recent eBooks as my next “study step,” which I started). But with this blog post I feel like I get it even better. It sounds like a very simple idea.
I probably want to join your SYNDD network if it is still open when I am ready. I’m actually re-organizing so that I can cancel some other monthly memberships to have more time and money and then I was very interested in SYNDD. Now after reading this I am even more interested. I would love to just build my websites, add content, improve my design, analyze my Analytics stats and improve my content and design even more, make lots of videos, distribute them, work on my content … and, like you said, spend 10% of my time on promotion. That sounds great.
Wanda
July 24th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
7Charles,
Excellent writing. I’m with you all the way. I absolutely love your content. Perry Belcher reminds me of a person that’s looking for Fame and Fortune. (not that anything is wrong with that) I like your style, its very low keyed and authentic, that’s important to me. Keep up the excellent work, you’re the Top Dog in my book.
The Syndication Revelation……that’s what I’m talking bout.
Thanks for sharing.
Wanda
Andreas
July 24th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
8Its exactly what I have been saying. Thats why I proposed in a blog post in April to use 3 twitter accounts: one for your friends where you tell ‘em what you had for lunch, one where you follow, one to spy on your competitors without them spying on you ;), and one where you shamelessly send out marketing messages (similar to your facebook content syndication club idea):
http://www.linknami.com/blog/2009/04/my-personal-twitter-marketing-approach/
Charles Heflin
July 25th, 2009 at 8:55 am
9@ Rob Sellen,
For some reason your comment went into the spam folder… not sure why??
As my post states … you have to be direct with your intention … start a group whose purpose is to share… Educate them on the benefit of forming the group and then each member becomes accountable to each other member to carry out marketing tasks for each other.
It will take a little while to set this up, get people in and start the ball rolling but you must be diligent. The reward is great.
Rob Sellen
July 25th, 2009 at 9:17 am
10Charles, thanks for that clarification. Odd with the comment going there seeing as I have commented before here more than a few times.
Then again… it’s technology
Thanks for that tip there, I see what you mean with that, I am going to have to think about this some more. As you say the end means is always the reward, the goal.
And persistence always pays off.
Thanks,
Rob
Dena
July 25th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
11Well said. I never have been too comfortable with the whole tweeting dynamic. That being said it does help bring traffic.
Thanks for a well thought out and well written post.
johnny Campbell
July 26th, 2009 at 10:08 am
12I totally agree with your position on social media marketing. I have been posting videos on the very position. Keep up the good fight. Eventually people will get it.
thanks- johnny Campbell- The Transition Man
Chris
July 26th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
13Anyone who is relying strictly on Social Media to network and not generating prospects in more traditional ways is going to fall behind. That being said… anyone who doesn’t completely embrace SM is going to be left behind in about three to five more years, if not sooner.
I disagree that Social Media should be used strictly for marketing. I’ve found quality prospects that I’ve moved to action, and also met valuable networking partners online.
And @Andreas, why would you need 3 twitter accounts? Doesn’t it get complicated trying to “be social” in different ways, to different people? Be yourself and you’ll get much farther in business.
I think the bottom line is that it may depend what your business is. For me, social media is perfect.
Are You Social Media Marketing?
July 26th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
14[...] I do my regular RSS catch up, this Soical Media Marketing the Anti-Social Approach caught up my attention and I suggest you read it [...]
Sarah
July 29th, 2009 at 9:51 am
15Charles, I agree almost whole heartedly.
Your take on social media is exactly what I have been telling my marketing buddies around me who say that social media is a complete waste of time. I tell them, “Yes, it is a waste of time if you simply let it suck you in and spend hours every day sifting through all of the information. However, it is not a waste of time if you have a strategy and you limit yourself to the necessary time it takes to sync your blog up with your twitter account or whatever.”
The only part I don’t agree with is when you said “you know, that single thing you can do that will reduce your marketing time from 90% down to 20%, then 10%, etc.” Granted, I am a marketing person, but I feel that marketing is your business…everything you do in business could be considered your marketing whether it be the sign on the door or the empty toilet paper holder in the bathroom.
Peter Grimes
August 9th, 2009 at 1:17 am
16Charles,
Thank you once again for an awesome post. I so admire and get your teaching on this subject and might I say, I believe you are a market leader when it comes to social marketing and syndication.
An interesting analogy just occurred to me also when reading this post. All the ’social networking’ that people do in order to try and create prospects is the online version of ‘cold calling’, YUCK.
Thank you for your leadership and I look forward to joining you soon.
Peter Grimes
Michelle
November 16th, 2009 at 6:54 am
17i do Social Media Marketing specially when promoting a new website or an affiliate product. Social media is more effective than offline advertising in my opinion.
Joey Logano Fan
December 24th, 2009 at 2:10 am
18Sorry for the short and simple comment, but when will you return to this website Charles? It’s really good my friend, would be great if you continued it =D
Perry Belcher
May 18th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
19Really liked the post. Social media can be a time sucker but when done correctly for the right purpose can really ROI. Simply a matter of choice.
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