Social Media Is Not A Magic Pill
A friendly reminder to business owners, freelancers and company leaders.
Welcome to Mo’s Letter, a weekly publication by Dr Mo about social media, business strategy and career development.
Dear business owner or manager,
This is your annual reminder that:
All branding is personal branding. There’s no difference between your company Page and your personal profile—they’re both an extension of your brand.
Social media is not a magic pill—it’s just one aspect of your digital medication.
A good social media presence won’t fix a bad product or terrible service—it will only amplify your failures.
You 👏🏽 Still 👏🏽 Have 👏🏽 To 👏🏽 Promote 👏🏽 Your 👏🏽 Social 👏🏽 Media 👏🏽 Content 👏🏽. I see so many business owners or freelancers creating pages, dumping one or two posts on them, and calling it a day. That page by itself won’t bring you any business (at first)—it’s simply a destination. Think of it like building a hotel: you still have to tell everybody about your hotel, show people what your hotel provides, generate massive FOMO, throw events; and most importantly, you have to do all of this in a relevant way, at opportune times, to the right people. That newly married couple that just bought a house isn’t interested in your hotel—but the tourist is. Promote your new hotel to the right people else you’ll be wasting both time and money.
You get out what you put in. Success boils down to you and the amount of time you spend creating your content, the effort you put into promoting and sharing that content, and the money that you invest in reaching more people through ads. It’s not rocket science.
You can’t outsource your marketing to a third party and then abandon it. You still have to be involved in the process. Share your plans so your social media manager (SMM) can craft content. Give your SMM the required resources they need to do their job. Do what they ask you to do when they ask you to do it. You’re paying them for their expertise; so listen to what they tell you.
Your personal profile is the most important social media asset you own. You can have a million brand accounts, but the people who know you, trust you, and are willing to spend money on you (your “first customers”) are found on your personal profile. If you’re neglecting your personal profile, hiring an army of social media managers will not save your business. See #1.
Babies don’t grow overnight—they take years to mature into independent adults. Just as your hotel won’t be a hit with tourists on Day 1, your social media pages won’t go viral overnight. It takes plenty of time, effort and investment—so be patient and keep feeding that baby.
A baby raised with love and care will support you for the rest of your life. Likewise, a social media presence built with focused intent will yield major dividends down the line. You’ll be able to leave the hotel and have it make you gobs of money in your absence. Aim for that goal.
Think long-term. When you hire a social media manager, do so with an expected timeframe of at least 9 months (heh) before you start seeing results. You will not go viral in the first week. In fact, if you’re not boosting your pages or posts, you’ll likely hear crickets for the first 2 months—that’s normal. Keep creating content, sharing it, and inviting new people to follow the Page—it will compound. See #4.
Consistency is not the name of the game—it’s the whole game. You can’t fall off the radar and come back two months later expecting to pick back up where you left off. The algorithms punish such inconsistency—the same way children never forgive you for abandoning them. Be a consistent parent.
Spread the effort—feed your other kids. You can’t rely solely on social media (your favourite child) and ignore other marketing channels (its siblings). You still need to get your brand featured in print. Throw events and grow attendance. Deliver great service for word-of-mouth marketing. Build a community of loyal fans. Jump on relevant podcasts and talk about your offerings. Make videos and animations about your offerings. Design great posters about your offerings. Get on radio and TV if you have the budget—and talk about your offerings. Is this beginning to sound repetitive? Keep 👏🏽 Talking 👏🏽 About 👏🏽 Your 👏🏽 Offerings 👏🏽.
Social media is a powerful amplifier of all your other marketing. But as you learned in high school, you can’t multiply by zero. See #3.
You are your biggest brand ambassador. All the influencers in the world won’t save your business if you don’t believe in it yourself. See #4.
Social media is not a meal—it’s a supplement. Just as you can’t subsist on vitamin pills, you can’t lean solely on social media with no sound marketing plan or business model beneath it. Get the fundamentals right, and social media will bring out the best in the business.
And remember: if you’re not playing and having fun with your baby, you’re doing it wrong.
Yours sincerely,
In my last post, I revealed a cool way of turning pesky salespeople in your DMs into profitable leads for your own business. Here’s how to pitch the pitcher:
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I enjoy your letters
I like all the points. Applies to so many things in business. I am guilty of number 4. Can we get something on working past the beast of procrastination and the fear of change?