In social media, you’ve got to have friends
Marketing guru Seth Godin wrote today about Dunbar’s number — the average human can’t have more than 150 friends. We’re not capable of handling more than that, according to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, simply because our brain — specifically the neocortex — can’t process any more.
Writes Godin:
“Some people online are trying to flout Dunbar’s number, to become connected and actual friends with tens of thousands of people at once. And guess what? It doesn’t scale. You might be able to stretch to 200 or 400, but no, you can’t effectively engage at a tribal level with a thousand people. You get the politician’s glassy-eyed gaze or the celebrity’s empty stare. And then the nature of the relationship is changed. I can tell when this happens. I’m guessing you can too.”
While 150 friends sound like a realistic number — or perhaps even high — for the true relationships developed over the years, does that number really relate to a digital, and especially, social media world? What’s the right number of friends to have on Facebook, connections on LinkedIn, or followers on Twitter? Especially if you are using these tools for social — and business — purposes.
I’m certain that my 501 Facebook friends aren’t exactly thinking about me every day, even if I update my status quite often. People understand and are increasingly comfortable with the concept of digital connections, which allow people to connect and reconnect with others of their own choosing on their own time. They know full well that they are not building deep bonds with everyone on their list.
Yet last week when I mentioned on Facebook that I needed to borrow an LCD projector, two people I don’t know well immediately stepped forward to offer to help. While those acquaintances may not meet Godin’s — or Dunbar’s — standards for friendship or being part of my “tribe,” they certainly met mine.
The common wisdom in social media business circles is that it’s the quality of your followers, not the number that is important. That is mostly true. Yes, the people using automation to, say, inflate their Twitter numbers are annoying. No, they are not helping themselves with anonymous strangers ignoring their every tweet.
However, many small businesses are too apt to stay in their comfort zone of immediate contacts and known associates. Without stretching themselves and their reach, their opportunities for new leads will be limited.
So what’s the magic number of social media contacts for a small business? Start with your circle of those you really know. Add some people who are valuable sources of information on trends in your business. Now, the important part. As a business person, you have a sense of how many customers you need and how many leads you work before a close. You also have a sense of how many new customers you’ll need on a recurring basis to remain profitable. How many leads will that take?
Add it all up. You can do the math. That’ll give you a target to shoot for. And the number may be well above — or below — 150.
Are LinkedIn Groups relevant any more?
One thing many social media consultants will tell clients is that LinkedIn Groups are important for business people to establish themselves as thought leaders or experts in their business. For starters, they’ll say: Get on LinkedIn, join a Group and start a discussion topic. They’ll show you the little trick where you write a question and than add “Comment here or join the discussion on my blog …”
There was a time when that tactic might have driven significant traffic to your Web site. Or posing a question might have actually led to a good discussion.
There may be some Groups on LinkedIn where quality discussion takes place. However, those places are few and far between. Many people tell me they no longer open e-mails from the Groups. I’m about to join them.
What’s happened? LinkedIn Groups have mostly been hijacked by self-promoters whose idea of “discussion” is to endlessly promote their “free” seminars, blogs, products and themselves. My interest, naturally, has been social media, but there is very little “discussion” in those groups. There are plenty of people, though, who want to “help” me with their pitches, which they have the gall to present as discussion.
This morning, I received an e-mail from someone obviously involved in setting up a Group, inviting me to their “free” teleseminar. The e-mail subject line said it was an “announcement” from the Group. They said to hurry, seats are filling up fast. Impressive, since just recently this same individual was spamming me with another free session, and the seats were going quickly. I have serious ethical issues with an e-mail coming from a Group with an individual using the Group name to tout his business. Where is LinkedIn on this?
Another problem with LinkedIn Groups is that it’s hard to find true discussions that are all that informative. I can only speak for social media topics, but I can tell you most of the talk there is behind the curve. I find much more valuable — and current — information on Twitter or elsewhere. Yes, there are tons of spammers on Twitter, but I have the flexibility to unfollow or block users if need be.
Sorry, LinkedIn, no disrespect. I still think there is great potential for businesses in using the social networking site to grow connections and get introductions. They’ve established clear guidelines in that section of LinkedIn and crack down on people who violate the rules. (I also still think the Advanced Search feature is a goldmine of business intelligence.) However, I can no longer recommend that business people join Groups unless their business is a rare case where the self-promoters haven’t already poisoned the atmosphere.
Small businesses and professionals, what do you think? Are LinkedIn Groups relevant any more? Do any help you in your business?
Social media ROI: A bet worth making
Since this blog is meant to be helpful to small businesses and professionals, it’s only right to delve into a much-debated topic in the social media realm — ROI, or Return On Investment.
As business owners, you want to see a return on using social media, especially if you’ve hired someone to help you. While the amount of money invested may be minimal, the amount of time can prove taxing. Results from social media require extended effort, even more than traditional marketing. A business owner wants a financial return on that money or time.
The debate around ROI essentially features three positions.
1. There is no ROI from social media.
2. ROI needs to be redefined differently in social media. While there may not be an immediate financial return, social media offers a Return On Influence, increasing brand awareness and online reputation, thus indirectly leading to new customers and revenue.
3. Social media actually offers more measurable ROI than traditional marketing.
Where do I stand? It’s a tad complicated, but let me explain. First, let’s rule out No. 1. While I understand the business view — and almost accept it — I think it’s short-sighted. To simply state there is no direct revenue from social media misses the bigger picture.
First, let’s think about traditional advertising or marketing. It’s been estimated that only 18% of TV ad campaigns yield a positive ROI. While advertisers are rethinking their media buys these days, they certainly stuck with TV for decades. Why? Because of the promise in connecting with consumers with that advertising — whether it was creating word of mouth, brand awareness or other strategies. Whether there was a immediate bump in product sales did not seem to be the top priority. Companies, while wanting returns, could see the big picture.
Now proponents of No. 1 are trying to hold social media to a higher standard than traditional marketing. Where’s the money? This is just a fad. Etc. Etc. The truth is that social media campaigns enable companies to engage directly with consumers, including existing customers and potential ones. Traditional marketing has been about communicating a message; social media leads to direct conversations about your message with consumers and developing customer relationships. Which has more long-term potential?
Now let’s turn to No. 2. Yes, it’s true that social media provides a Return on Influence, and that’s great. It’s great that many in your community are fans of your Facebook page or tweets on Twitter. Your online reputation is boosted; your search rankings soar. But does that necessarily translate to money in the bank? I’m not ready to drop the need for Return of Investment, but I see Return on Influence as a nice add-on to a business strategy. Return on Influence opens the door to Return on Investment.
So are proponents of No. 3 correct? Let’s look at just a few of the things you can track in social media.
• Site traffic gained from social media referrals
• Comments/conversations that you can minitor
• How often someone shares your brand message with others
• Number of followers, fans, connections from social media
• Increases in RSS feeds from your site
• What people are saying about your company
• Number of inbound links to your site or a particular page
Also, there are specific social media campaigns that can be designed for immediate measurement. For example, the conversion rate can easily be tracked when offering coupons for a product or service through Facebook or Twitter. That’s just one possibility of a positive ROI campaign.
So No. 3 is true, but with two caveats. First, social media are not an automatic path to financial success. Second, they are just one piece of the puzzle. They should be used in coordination with other marketing techniques — email and traditional marketing. That is why major marketing companies now use terms like “integrated marketing” to describe what they do. They realize that marketing strategies require all these practices. And they realize any marketing campaign, traditional or social media, will take time.
The good news for small businesses and professionals is that social media are only in their infancy. The tools will get better, and the opportunities for real Return on Investment will only improve.
‘Social notworking’: Give me a break
A healthcare consultant asked me last week what I did for a living while at a networking session on Atlanta’s Northside.
I handed him my card, and he immediately went into recounting the many ways social media adversely affect worker productivity. Others quickly agreed. The consultant told stories about a doctor leaving the operating room to use Twitter, office workers wasting time and other horror stories. I politely didn’t ask how he knew the doctor was on Twitter and not texting buddies to set up a tee time. (Not that texting is justified, either.)
I heard similar concerns the next morning from more business people at another gathering. Ironically, when I got home, the first online article I spotted focused on statistics from ScanSafe showing that 76% of companies are choosing to block social networking in the workplace, more than for online shopping, weapons sites or porn.
It gets worse. I then stumbled upon a report by Boston-based Nucleus Research, a company involved in IT research. In late July, Nucleus released “Facebook: Measuring the Cost to Business of Social Notworking.” (A salute to whoever at Nucleus wrote that clever headline.) The Nucleus report concludes:
“Companies that let employees access Facebook during work hours can expect to see total office productivity decline by an average of 1.5%.”
Looking further into the report I found such details as these:
“Those who access Facebook at work do so for an average of 15 minutes daily, with the range as low as one minute and as high as 120 minutes.”
Or, gasp!
“One in every 33 created their entire Facebook profile during work hours.”
So how does this social media advocate respond to these alarming developments? With common sense perspective.
Let’s travel back in time, shall we, to the invention of the World Wide Web. Eventually, computers with browsers invaded the workplace. Why? Because the business world was going online and using online tools was good for business. Same with e-mail. Most companies learned after years of restrictive company communications policies that there was a middle ground for what types of sites were appropriate for the workplace. Most companies now know that users want to be online first thing at work, around lunch and right before they go home.
Now here we are, moving beyond the early adopters of social media into the mainstream. Facebook, of course, is experiencing phenomenal growth among those 35 and up (and 55 and up). Just as companies once wrestled with Web browsers and e-mail, many now don’t know what to make of Facebook.
What the naysayers — and many in the business world — are missing is the shift in online behavior. People now spend more time on social networking sites than they do on e-mail. More and more, friends are suggesting to friends what sports stories to read, music to listen to, or products to buy. Social networking sites are rapidly becoming the portal through which consumers find what they want. Facebook apparently wants to aggregate all that content from all your social media. (See Aug. 16 post.) So the time spent on social sites is supplanting much of that time that used to be spent surfing online or e-mailing.
So it’s not that workers are wasting more time through social media. Wasting time in the office is an established American tradition. So the “15 minutes a day” on Facebook is hardly going to reduce the Gross National Product. That is 15 minutes interacting with friends online, instead of 15 minutes or more scouring stocks, sports scores, recipes or whetever workers used to look for. Or it’s 15 minutes not chatting in the break room or office cafeteria. It’s possible that 15 minutes on Facebook may be a time savings for many Web-savvy workers.
And, evidently, that 15 minutes probably is a good thing for your business resume.´ As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently reported in a widely circulated feature, more and more companies are now requiring social media skills for many positions.
Granted, there are people spending too much time on social media, just as others 10 years ago spent too much time surfing the Web, or using AIM. I’m old enough to remember people who spent the entire morning pouring over every word in a newspaper sports section, or checking their stocks. Those who are non-productive in the workplace are obvious, whether they are addicted to Twitter or online puzzles. Why should companies spoil it for everyone else?
Now I need to finish this post, so I can get back to work. My Facebook business page awaits.
Latest studies: Social, video the growth areas
OK, class, it’s time to review the latest studies, which seem to give us a pretty clear picture of the online world.
1. Internet usage is peaking.
2. Social networking sites are on the rise while social sites with a single focus, like Flickr or Blogger, are not (except YouTube).
3. The blogging audience is peaking.
4. Video watching and sharing continue to grow, especially among young adults.
These are some of the findings from reports this week by Forrester Research, Universal McCann and the Pew Internet and American Life Project. What they tell us is that our media habits have somewhat stabilized. While Internet usage doubled in the past five years, TV viewing habits haven’t really changed, according to Forrester. People still spend more time watching TV than online. Radio, newspapers and magazines have been the victims of Internet growth.
So what does this mean for small businesses and professionals? They’d better be thinking about Nos. 2 and 4 and what strategies they can use for these worlds. Social networks and video-sharing sites are the hot zones.
It also confirms my experience. The best way to draw people to your blog or company Web site is through social media. Otherwise, people won’t come looking for you.
