Subtract (Social Media) = More Sales, More Profit Part I

Written by Robert Bacal |

Social Media Topics - Social Media Metrics and ROI

It would seem counter-intuitive to think that your revenue and profit could go UP by subtracting social media from your mix of business activities. Certainly those who suggest that social media is an essential part of all businesses would disagree, sight unseen. But they would be wrong.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but we are seeing an increase in revenue and profit as we wind down our social media activities. Since early 2010 we've planned to eliminate our personalized use of social media as a business endeavor, but set a date of Jan. 2011 to do so. We did that for two reasons. First, I'm writing a book on business and social media and I need to stay connected to what's going on until at least then, when, hopefully, the manuscript will be complete. Second, I wanted to give social media enough time to allow me to prove, one way or the other, that it could be beneficial.

Early Bird Action

That was the plan. It didn't take into account my total "fedupness" with the lack of quality content relative to the junk. Twitter is a waste of time, and it's worse because those that participate really DO believe they are having indepth discussions. Nuh-Uh. Read a few chat transcripts isolated from the fervor, to get a taste of how superficial the conversations are, and how the 140 character limits make even the smartest people sound stupid and lacking depth.

LinkedIn looked good, until I realized it just looked better. The discussion threads in groups that gain the most comments are the most trivial. Weighty topics, sometimes work out but again, the signal/noise ratio is bad.

Facebook...well, it's Facebook. Who really expects intellectual stimulation there?

So, about two weeks ago, I realized the whole thing wasn't fun anymore. If it ain't fun it better have a strong and obviously measurable effect on business. It hasn't had that. So, as much to save sanity as anything else, I cut back my personal involvement/dialogue and discussions to zero. My bet is nobody really noticed, which I believe is a comment on the falsity of many "relationships" via social media.

Early Indicators

So, it's early of course, and any results are anecdotal and correlational. Whatever the outcome, it would be hard, if not impossible, to demonstrate positive business effects would be caused by subtracting social media.

However, since we've done the cut, our revenue and profits are up, relative to the month of September. We've simply had more sales from more diverse customers than we had before. How coudl that be?

I'll let you think about this for a bit, and suggest some reasons, but I have some pretty good guesses as to why this would happen, and why it's likely it will happen to others who run businesses under similar conditions -- that being a small, microbusiness where most activity is done by one, or just a very few people, and where the business works in a niche, and doesn't cater to the mass market.

Stay tuned. Next part will address what I think is the critical factor operating here, which is opportunity costs of social media.

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Learn From Competition?

MicroThoughts

Some believe you should monitor and emulate your competition on social media. Here's a thought:

If you look at your competitors, will you end up looking like your competitors? The ongoing issue in any marketing or even in developing a network is how to standout FROM the competition, and not to BE like the competition.

Social Media Peril

The biggest peril facing social media users and businesses has to do with trust. Anyone can be anybody they choose in social media since there are no even close to adequate methods to verify identities. The peril lies with users who, after interacting with someone they think they know, will believe they know them well enough to trust them as if they had known them for a long time. It's a dangerous situation on many levels, and I wish social media proponents would start educating people as to the dangers. Even if a person is who they say, we have no idea of the vested interests and agendas, and that's one reason to verify anything important heard via social media.

Friends1

In order of stability and connection strength, (strongest first) friendships/relationships can be categorized as 1) unconditional 2) semi-conditional 3) transactional and 4) User Based. Social media users tend to confuse these, and believe the weakest types of ties are actually much stronger than they are.

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You know someone isn't worth following if they retweet compliments given to them by others. They are either frauds who are better at self-promotion than they are in their alleged area of expertise, or they are so insecure that they have to -- just have to, make sure that everyone knows how wonderful other people think they are. Hint: Run away. These folks are like empty drums. Bang on the outside and you get a cool sound. Empty inside -- nothing to offer.

SocialMediaBust