What’s the point of social media, anyway?
April 9th, 2008 by Allen VoivodCan I be totally honest for a second?
Sometimes, I just don’t get it. Social media, that is.
I mean, intellectually, I understand that social media is the Next Big Thing, that over the next few years it’ll become as indispensable as the Internet and email eventually became, and it’s going to be the next tech bubble and burst on Wall Street.
But sometimes, I don’t see the point of it. I have profiles set up in LinkedIn, Facebook, Ryze, Twitter, Squidoo, and so forth. But I’m not always confident about the value setting up and spending time on these sites actually contributes to my business. As an attendee said, at a recent workshop where we were presenting, “Sometimes I think you people are just fooling around all day,” referring to those in the assembled group who said they were blogging for their business.
Then I happen to read an issue of Melanie Benson Strick’s Success Connections ezine, where she says:
I have a new obsession that is really paying off.
Recently I was introduced to two social networking sites that have made a HUGE impact on my leads and have introduced some wonderful new clients into my programs. As a quick example, one person who read my blog posts from MySpace ended up purchasing my Get Out of Overwhelm and Create your Lifestyle Business CD set. Then he immediately called me and joined the Fast-Track to a Lifestyle Business Mastermind. He then went on to join my Platinum Elite coaching program. You can do the math but let’s just say it was worth over $15k to my bottom line (plus I have a wonderful new client to work with).
Yes, you read that right. One client, worth $15,000 (and probably more, considering his lifetime value to her). I’d assume this is the “results not typical” example, but Lani and I know Melanie, and based on what she’s saying in the rest of her note, there’s more where that came from.
Notice, too, one other thing she says in there, which I put in helpful bold font for you. Melanie’s having the blog posts from her website piped in to her MySpace page through the magic of RSS feeds.
That means Melanie didn’t have to create additional, brand new, constantly refreshed content exclusively for her account on MySpace. She multi-purposed her content. And you can do the same thing with Facebook, Squidoo, and many others.
As lifestyle entrepreneurs and million-dollar business owners, we all want to give our clients and customers the best service and value we have to offer. But we also have to make money at it. So if you (like me) ever doubted the value of being on social media sites, here’s one hard-dollar bit of proof for you.
