Social Media Is Not Marketing, So Take A Break
Social Media Is Not Marketing
The other day at brunch a few friends and I were discussing how we use our various social media accounts. Facebook for friends and family, Linked in for Career and Professional interests, Pinterest for creativity and home, Twitter for politics and media. Reddit for…still trying to figure that one out. And Instagram? Well, a few weeks ago my Instagram account that I’ve had for three years just disappeared. Poof. I couldn’t sign in, couldn’t access followers, images, nothing. Instagram, owned by Facebook, doesn’t have a way to contact customer service. I sent a ton of messages, they reply via email calling me the wrong name and the wrong handle. I basically never existed and there is literally no record of my activity. Gone. I poured some energy into my IG account. I created postings in Canva that were heartfelt and meaningful. People followed me and I really enjoyed the people I followed. I don’t have the energy to re-build my account from the beginning. And IG has already started a few more accounts in my name with variations of numbers and letters that I would never consider. Now people are following a fake account created by a company that you cannot reach.
I loved it but I’m not going back.
This experience with Instagram made me analyze my use of social media. Not just the how, as listed above but also how much time and the quality of that time while I was using it. What could I have been doing? Where could I have been focusing my attention?
I realized that there are companies, not in technology are creating full-scale business plans around what they can get from people because they are addicted to their social media activity. They over inflate the value of what they sell by adding social media access into their offerings. This dilutes actual things that are of value. People oversell experiences on social media to the detriment of their long-term business value. Whatever happened to customers for life, be-back customers, repeat customers? Social media has helped companies with notoriously poor customer service swim around the web with their reach and frequency to lull customers and potential customers into thinking that they provide good services when they do not. They use their social media numbers to quantify value versus just delivering on their promises. Let’s compare revenue to likes and shares. I think the latter would win.
Back to reddit. I was on the r/marketing group the other day and there was a great discussion on what is marketing. It is not digital and social media. Digital marketing is a tactic, a tool. It is used to reach people with a message as a part of an overall campaign. It can create leads, of varying quality. It can be monetized. But in order to implement digital marketing one has to have a strategy and figure out the following:
· What are you selling?
· To whom? Who is your target market?
· Why? How is this different?
· How much is it?
That is marketing. It doesn’t matter what you offer, simply throwing it on social media and launching an email marketing campaign creates traffic not closings. In order for it to be successful one has to do the market research, competitive analysis, cost analysis, define the target market, and test it! Then do it again and measure the results.
This weekend, October 4 – 5, a social media timeout is being promoted. One day, that’s it. I’m going to do it. At 3:30 pm on Friday I’ll take a time out until October 5th at 4 pm. I seek to notice if it’s just a habit to check my phone and apps or if I really need to find something or chat with someone. These planned breaks, timeouts, blackouts, turn-offs, will continue in popularity. As more people realize what they are missing in IRL and that most social media is just companies fighting for your attention and click-through, how will this change marketing. Companies still need traditional and conventional marketing strategies in order to sell products and services that are worth the value they cost. Companies need to be held accountable and not just over promote, over promise and over sell things that they can’t and won’t deliver on.
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