How do you leverage social media to benefit your business? What mistakes must you avoid? What should your business goals be as it relates to social media?
In this video, Eric Spellmann answers those questions and more. He explains the secret psychological reason people are drawn to social media and shows you how to incorporate that point into an effective social media campaign.
Before you spend one more dollar or minute of your time TRYING to make social media work for your business, watch Eric’s video and learn the TRUE purpose of this amazing medium.
Note from Eric: Below, you will find a word-for-word transcript of this video. I provide this as an aid for the hearing-impaired and for those who might just want to read it rather than watch the video. This conversational style is not reflective of how I write. Be nice!
Hey I am Eric Spellmann and today’s topic is “The TRUE Business Purpose of Social Media”. You know there are a lot of people out there preaching this is what you need to do to make tonnes of money using social media. And I’m here to tell to you it really boils down to just a few things! And I want to make that clear to you, so that you can understand what your expectation should be as a business if you’re going to invest any time or money working on social media. So let’s talk about it.
Basically the key is to understand what is it that you want to do? A business has certain goals, like generating leads. And I’m here to tell you that should be the NUMBER 1 reason you get on social media from a business standpoint. And when I’m talking about leads, I don’t mean just random people off the street calling you up.
I’m talking about people who are needing what you’re selling. And basically what you’re wanting them to do is pick up the phone and say ”Hey how can you help me?” So if you’re gonna use social media, if you’re gonna take part of your time, and I know you’re so busy. If you’re gonna take part of that time and invest in doing some social media work or pay someone to do it for you, you’ve got to make sure that you’re getting the return you’re supposed to get.
So, you need to be measuring how many leads you are getting from your social media activities, or you may want to be generating sales. Now some of you know that when I talk about the purpose of a website, really it’s to generate leads or generate sales.
And when I talk about sales, I mean people who might have a shopping cart on their site. So if you don’t have a shopping cart on your site, if the goal of your website is primarily to convince people to pick up the phone and call you or to shoot you a message or to fill out a form or something, then your goal is to generate leads. So understand that. But, people who might have a shopping cart on their site where they want people to put something in it, use a Credit Card and then they deliver it, that’s where generating sales would be the goal of social media.
Branding. This isn’t the primary reason, so I don’t want you to think of it as 1 of the Big 3 here, because it’s really not! Branding is one of those things where you want to be top of mind awareness. Now you remember, if you’ve taken my Marketing Course (https://www.udemy.com/click-and-learn-marketing-essentials/), top of mind awareness is where people say this is what we need and you are the first name that comes to their mind. You are at the top of their mind as it relates to that need.
That is your goal! So that people may not be ready to do business with you now, but later they might. And you want to make sure that when they think who does this? O yeah, Spellmann does that! That’s what you want to happen. So, whether you’re trying to generate leads or generate sales, you’re also trying to generate some branding.
So, why do people use social media? If you’re gonna use social media to get people to take some sort of action like give you a call, you have to understand what is the psychological reason people use social media for. Or basically, you need to understand one of the basics of all psychology, and that is that every human being has a deep down need to be relevant! In other words they want their opinion to matter. When they say something they want it to be heard.
They don’t want to be someone who wasn’t noticed by anybody for their whole life! Now, you realize that a lot of people wouldn’t be comfortable getting in front of a good number of people and giving their opinion. But the cool thing about social media is that you can be all by yourself and say you have a 100 friends on say Facebook, and you post something. And in your heart, in your mind you know that a large number of those people saw your post.
You were relevant, you made a difference! I know this sounds like psycho-babble, but trust me this is exactly why social media is so popular. And heck this is why kids like to compete to see who can have the most followers, is because it makes them more relevant!
So, as a business what you really want to do is facilitate that. You want to allow them to be relevant. And there are certain ways to do that. But first, we need to understand the mistakes most people make when trying to use social media for business.
The BIGGEST mistake of all, is they simply treat it like a bullhorn! You know like “Hey we’re having a sale today” They’re just making announcements into the nothingness. And then they forget about social media and go and think of it as a one-way street, where they can just yell at people. And I’m here to tell you that’s not! If you think social media is only for just putting advertisements out for a business standpoint, you’re not going to see any results.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they have no content! People aren’t on the internet to be advertised to “Did you see me?” People are not on the internet for the purpose of being advertised to! They are on the internet because they are seeking the solution to a problem or the answer to a question! And if you can connect your social media post into that need they have, then you’re so much farther ahead of everybody else from a business standpoint.
So, don’t think in terms of your products and services. Think in terms of your solutions and your answers. Because that’s what people are looking for.
Another big mistake people make with social media is NO PICTUERS! Remember, what I’ve always said and nearly half of my videos say that, everyone on the internet has ADD and they’re lazy! And when you’re on facebook, and especially if you have a lot of friends, you’re scrolling pretty quick and the only time you stop is when you spot a picture! The purpose of putting up a picture in social media is to get you to stop and look and see what it’s about!
So every post you do should have a picture. People who just post little text pieces hardly ever get seen and rarely get interacted with.
Another problem people have on social media from a business standpoint is they don’t ever have a call to action. In other words whatever you gave, whatever content you gave, whatever picture you showed, whatever article you’re pushing, whatever even advertisement, what do you want them to do? Based on what you just told them, what action do you want them to take? You need to tell them.
Now with a lot of my videos, I simply want them to watch the video. I want them to click that play button, that’s my goal. And by clicking on the play button, they connect with my content. And then hopefully at some point in the future, they will give me a call, they will contact me. And trust me this works!
So, what is your call to action? What do you want them to do? Do you want them to come in the store? Do you want them to call you? What is it that you want them to do based on the post?
And finally, no interaction! One of the biggest mistakes people make, is they don’t even know how to measure if social media is working or not. Well let me tell you how to know if it’s working or not. You count the comments! I’m not talking about the likes;
I’m not talking about the shares! You count the comments on your post. And that will tell you whether people are interacting with you or not. And there are certain ways to convince people to interact with you.
Anyways I’m starting to get a little duplicative; I’m starting to sound repetitive, and I want to stop that. So I want you to go watch my videos. One of my most popular videos ever, and it continues to show up number 1 on Google for a number of searches. The video is at my website ericspellmann.com.
And I know I’m not trying to sell you something, this is just another video. But this video will answer the questions I have kind of let up to here. After opening my website, you’re going to click on the Videos link.
And then you’re gonna look down that first column and you’ll see a title called Social Media Marketing. And under there, look closely at the titles and you’ll find a title called “The Perfect Facebook Business Post”.
Now if that’s too much to navigate, then you can go to Google and type in “The Perfect Facebook Business Post” and I’ll show up. But I want you to watch that video, because it goes into great depth for what must be in a social media post. And I’ve also given examples of a good social media post, so you can see.
Well, as always if you need anything give me a call; shoot me an email, I’ll be happy to help if I can. I am Eric Spellmann; I’ll see you in cyberspace.