Saw this on a friend’s WhatsApp status one day…
Don’t base your decisions on the advice of those who don’t have to deal with the results.
That’s why you shouldn’t approach online marketing with social media as the end.
Fake commitment
Facebook’s likes and shares are a cop-out. They’re not a sign of commitment. It’s a false indicator. That’s why they call it vanity metrics (an actual term in our industry).
Likers and sharers don’t necessarily share your vision; they aren’t concerned with the results you’d like to see.
They’re simply doing what they think is a good deed by investing five seconds of their time.
You want commitment.
Say you decide to start a business. You post to Facebook, asking for people to indicate whether it’s a good idea.
Most of your friends like the post; some even share it. Some comment that you’re such a go-getter and that you’ve got what it takes to kill it.
So you take the plunge and open your doors to the public a month later.
No one pitches up.
All those people who liked and shared your post are mysteriously missing. They’re just not that into you.
That’s what social media does. It makes it too easy for people to voice their opinions and show their support.
But when push comes to shove, crickets.
The better way
Real commitment from others may not come with the dopamine spike associated with social media validation, but it can be counted in dollars.
That’s the bottom line.
The only way to get people to make a real commitment is to push them further down the funnel.
Social media is too close to the top of the funnel, where there’s plenty of noise and signal is hard to recognize.
You want people away from social media.
You want them to click through from social media to your website.
Once you’ve got them there, their eyes are yours alone.
But there’s something else…
Naturally, you need to give them something that’ll make their eyes swim in happiness.
No point going to the trouble of getting them off social media, but your website is an appalling mess unable to educate visitors, and unable to convert them into customers.
That might be one of the reasons you never bothered with a website.
Perhaps you had one built by a graphic designer who doesn’t know the first thing about the role of a website.
It’s all bells and whistles and a color explosion.
Looks great, but it just sits there like a forgotten beauty queen. No one’s interested.
And so, you convince yourself that websites don’t work. They’re a relic.
Yet, the data suggests that, if a website is properly set up and run like a marketing tool, it produces results.
Just because your website doesn’t work, or just because a friend says their website is useless, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Get your business a website that clearly communicates the value you bring to the visitor, and give them a clear call to action, so they can convert.
And don’t use corporate BS language! Use language in the right way for your market, without sounding like a dictator trying to sound like an English gentleman with an umbrella stuck in his… ear.
If you’d like a WordPress website that gets it right; that’s geared towards getting you more conversions, order one from Appstrax.
