It seems every time I turn around there is another seminar offering tidbits about how Social Media can help businesses sell more stuff.  Most of them involve a fee and most of them just barely scratch the surface and won’t get you anywhere in actually marketing your business.  I learned all about this the hard, more costly way, one little fee at a time, in marketing my little Internet store, White Oak Attic.   After reading, studying and contemplating for several years now, I’ve found my best results have come from other methods combined with social media.

My experience with social media began with LinkedIn. It was a good fit for my early objectives, to round out a kind of “online resume” and reach the business community with my services at the time (I was 15 years in as a print advertising sales rep for newspapers and magazines).  My experience with social media today is primarily to build a business I really enjoy and for changing my life into something I want it to be. I like the path I finally found, one that doesn’t force me to eat, sleep and breath marketing.

Today, my little Attic has become my career.  Social media COMBINED with Internet marketing is growing this little operation slowly but surely.  I spent quite a lot of money, about $30 or $40 at a time, on the premise of FREE advertising with social media over the past year or so.  An appealing concept since I had no money to invest and because as a marketing experiment, I wanted to see if it could be done – build a business without spending money on advertising. It can, but I goofed in wasting a lot of money on these confounded classes and seminars that could technically be considered advertising since that was what I was trying to do from them.  Now I look for programs where I can learn all I want for free and only pay for things that will pay for themselves ~ win, win propositions.  I have learned many things the hard way concerning social media and online marketing.  Here is the list:

1. A giant following on social media channels, a best-selling book and a lot of useful tips does not = social media expert for businesses. More likely the expertise is at making a profit by selling a book, education program or related social media tool. All fine if you understand that up front but I don’t find many of them mentioning this.  Look for very specific, defined outcomes when you’re asked to pay a fee. For example: “Social Media for Business” is very broad and general, but “How to Grow a Facebook Page for Business” is much more realistic and much easier to assess whether you are gaining something valuable.  The truth is you can learn most of these things online, for free, then invest your money in the TOOLS and SERVICES that actually build something tangible once you understand what you need. An hour or two here and there spent at random events won’t buy you much more than a very broad overview so skip them if you’re already past the beginner stages of understanding how great social media is and setting up your accounts.
2. Social media is just a tool, not a whole marketing plan. A much more intricate strategy is involved in using it to actually make money for most businesses and boy was I surprised at what ended up working…read on.
3. Social media works vastly different than traditional media. Building an audience here isn’t the same as getting people to call you or buy something from you, there is a much bigger objective and if you miss it you will waste a lot of time and money.  Taking the time to learn this has been well worth the time and effort and it is a different message than I hear coming out of most of the well known social media “experts”.
4. Social media serves best as part of an Internet marketing plan aimed at building traffic to a website. Building a selling channel on a social media platform might be nice to have later, but I’d better focus on making sales directly from my website first if I want to stay in business.  When I have the budget for it I can buy those extras since they will undoubtedly contribute to the overall strategy. Spend your time, money and effort in learning how people shop online before you tackle social media in a serious effort.
5. Social media is going to cost me – either time or money. At first it was a lot of both as I struggled to see how it works for an actual retail operation. I wasted a lot of money, one small fee at a time, going to one seminar, chat, discussion and roundtable after the next trying to figure this out only to find I’d learned what was being offered on my own by spending time with it – we all can… I still haven’t heard one “social media expert” do a good job of laying this out.  In many cases (not all) I believe it is because they haven’t seen this yet themselves.
6. When you are a one-horse operation, looking to strike out on your own, the investment is a lot of time. You can’t afford the expense to build it the right way by paying someone; not yet. You can only start folding in services that factor into a much larger plan.  For instance, someone to build your Facebook page or someone to populate your Twitter feed and grow a targeted following for you, someone to set up a blog and/or website for you etc.  You will have an active roll until you have more revenue (then you can start handing out roles to staff or an outside firm). Established businesses are in a much better position to start outsourcing once they understand the full strategy behind online marketing.
7. Take the time to learn.  Don’t run off half-cocked desperately trying to build a mass of followers thinking that’s all you need to get sales. Having a large audience is different from making sales.  I’ve talked to several people now who have great networks and quickly built a gigantic following in social media only to find they just aren’t making any sales.  The flip side, my little engine that could has a very small social media following but my sales are steadily going up (and so is my social media following).
8. Converting visitors to customers is a short or long process depending on how the visitors find you. If my visitors found my site because I met them at a business function and invited them to connect in social media they usually don’t become buyers and often never engage in much of the content.  If I find them through the content on my website, which brings them there because they are interested in what I have on the site I usually get a sale at some point. Does this mean I don’t want my friends and family coming to my website or joining me in social media? No. But it also means I’m not expecting my business growth from this avenue (hint: this is the avenue most are using to build their audiences online – business and personal networks and why most aren’t seeing much profit from it).
9. Myth: A big social media audience means I’ll get more business. I thought this must be so because traditional marketing dictates this logic…more people = more sales.  While having a big audience certainly won’t hurt, it is much more CRUCIAL that the audience be a very particular kind of audience if you hope to increase sales.  For some businesses this is easy but for most it isn’t easy at all. Content comes first, then the audience develops around that content.  If you have a lot of money to invest in paying to have the content built quickly things will happen faster, otherwise – slow and steady wins the race.
10. Build a plan around getting traffic to your website. Don’t set out just to create multiple marketing channels ~ synchronize them to increase the strength of your primary outlet – your website/blog. I run my little store on a blog platform, WordPress, and it costs about $25 upfront to get started, more if you have to hire a programmer but you can get a basic blog up for this $25 and pay for more as time goes.  If you’re on a shoestring budget you are in good company, I started with just an idea, maybe $100 – $200 all told when I count up the nickels and dimes, and have used sales from the store to pay for advancements and the education I refer to in this article.  It is why my site isn’t all that fancy, and I’ve found it doesn’t have to be.

My primary vocation in life has become my little website, hatched half as a lark three years ago and centered on things I enjoy doing.  I would love to hear your ideas that have worked. It’s tough out here for everyone these days ~ pooling resources is a great way to go and we all stay afloat!