The
issues of social media and how to use it is usually ambiguous, often
confusing, and sometimes baffling to business owners. The immediate
question on everyone’s mind is how do I use it to create revenue. So if
your selling your knowledge of social media you are selling to a market
that doesn’t understand it and is already programmed to believe it is
something it is not.
Professional services is selling knowledge people want or need to
make something better. What businesses always want is either how to
reduce expenses without hurting service or how to sell more of
something they have or don’t yet have but want to develop.
Consultants have to provide not only subject-matter expertise, but
also critical thinking coupled with a neutral perspective gained from
experience dealing with very similar and also very different
situations. The difficulty is selling social media is that the market
is tainted with misconceptions and everyone is telling everybody what
it is and how to use it. Most of what the market is saying is wrong.
Consultants have to add value through communicating capabilities and
enabling relationships but also they have to actually create value
through intellect and experience combined with just the right level of
creativity. In other words they must approach a prospective client with
solutions thinking that appeals to their needs.
What Solution Does Social Media Create?
The right question is what problem does social media solve. You
can’t recommend a solution if your client doesn’t perceive it as
solving a problem they have and want to fix.
So the first issue is to understand what problem a client has that
they want to solve. Clearly identifying and defining the problem is
half the battle. If you can’t identify a problem that social media may
be able to solve then your chances of getting engaged are slim. Worse,
though, is giving the impression that social media can solve all the
problems, it can’t.
Social media can’t solve all your problems as a matter of fact using
it improperly can create more problems that you never had. Yet
everywhere I look many seem to be selling social media as the cure all
for everything. Here is a hint. It isn’t!
The Problem With Expected Results
Most of the market is consumed with creating an ROI from social
media. Many want social media solutions that drive revenue. The problem
with these perspectives is they haven’t identified a problem they want
fixed or a solution that want to achieve besides more revenue. ROI
comes from lowering cost or improving revenue from investments in new
initiatives aimed at solving problems. Social media doesn’t do either
without knowledge.
As stated in a previous post social media is a system of communications, period. While communications is part of any solution to solving problems and generating more revenue it is not the whole solution.
Social media is a communications tool that can help you increase
awareness, improve brand recognition, reach more people efficiently and
pull a market to your value proposition. However, simply doing so
doesn’t translate to revenue or solving problems if you don’t think
through the process and related issues. Simply jumping into social
media and pushing your message is like yelling at your sales force for
more revenue. If you haven’t first figured out what your market wants
or needs and whether you are capable of delivering it then you are
peeing in the wind. How’s that for an analogy?
If you don’t know where your market is and how they are participating in social media how will you “communicate”
with them? Worse yet if you are communicating the wrong thing the wrong
way how can you expect the market to pay attention to you or your
proposition? The analogy for this is throwing money into advertising
with no way to know who it reaches and who responds. Sound familiar?
Social media affords you that specific data so you can measure how effectively you are communicating with your market.
So again, what is the ROI on social media? The answer is how well do you communicate with your market (all social media does is deliver it) and what value do you have to offer (that is the job of every business to define, improve and deliver).
Fix your communications and deliver superb value and social
media will return a huge ROI. Selling social media is only relevant to
improving your market communications, which can improve revenue and
saves money if you “know” how. Get it?
What say you?