In this day and age, with all the hubbub regarding social media, the needs for social media marketing in entrepreneurship, and the rumors that people have massively, successfully, expanded their bottom line with
Perhaps the consensus among business owners and executive boards that might not be so familiar with the social media movement, but are directly responsible for turning profits on behalf of large corporations, could assume that they require an entire team or division of social media marketers in order to maintain pace (and par) with the younger generations and steep competition in their industry(ies).
Without a doubt, several businesses have benefitted from implementing social media in their outbound communication efforts and inbound lead generation for sales and advertising.
However, does every single business in our current generation of the technological era honestly require social media marketing in order to be at the top of their game and generate a massive bottom line of successful revenue?
As an experienced digital marketer in the online space of entrepreneurship, I am of the school of thought that one should carefully consider whether implementing social media is actually a good fit for their business model – and even if it is, putting too much effort into one line of communication is like putting all of your eggs into one basket.
Is that truly some sound activity to be exercising some business-related decision-making skills on sales and marketing if all of your advertising is exclusive to one medium?
While my entire business operation is done online, personally and professionally, I still operate on the knowledge that more lines in the water means more opportunities to close deals and turn a profit.
Hootsuite is both a company and a management platform of social media accounts whom offers training in business strategy, particularly with implementing social media to one’s business model, and certification for proficiencies in both the avenue of social media marketing, and in the effective use of the entire hootsuite platerform.
While the overall goal of the Hootsuite online software application is to provide ease and expediency in submitting posts to the various social media platforms, one cannot help but still question…
Is Certification in Social Media Marketing, or even more specifically, Certification thru Hootsuite’s social media training programs, genuinely worth the time and financial investments to endure and earn your stripes with learning how to manage social media the way they teach?
I know that my digital marketing agency specializes in local lead generation…
And with this business model, I have been able to hook up more than 50 small businesses and bring light to the owners of those companies with a 200-300% increase in customer inquiry (lead/call) volume and overall revenue.
In fact, it’s really a cake walk now that I’ve been doing this for a few years and left my 9 to 5 to work part-time while maintaining a full-time income.
Now, I can operate on nearly 100% profit margins by directly capitalizing on the search engine’s free organic traffic to run my business and see actual numbers that are results from my side hustle.
From the lens of someone who has landed success in the online entrepreneurial world, I am happy to share with you what is available on the inside of a Hootsuite training purchase (or membership, as it were), with the hope of delivering this insight within the proper context of how and when someone in the business world might be able to implement social media for the purposes of growing your business.
A Brief Overview of Hootsuite University: What You Might Find Inside
The Good Things
- Even if you’ve never been on social media before, Hootsuite has composed a training that begins at the very basics of each major social media option. They deliver on fundamentals of these platforms and allow you to learn more about all of them – even if you only are proficient at (or only use) one or two, like me with Facebook and Instagram exclusively
- What makes profiles engaging and how to organize yours to be that way
- Overview of applications external to the social media platforms that can facilitate the implementation of social media and the variety of platforms that one might use
- Testimonials and proof of how a variety of
companies exercise their ability to implement social media accounts for their
gain, with targeted purposes being achieved like:
-Grow an Audience
-Train Employees
-Help Brand Ambassadors Adhere to their Image as Agents of the Company Name
-Finding and Recruiting Talent
-Satisfying consumer service needs, inquiries, and challenges
…all thru social media - Management Considerations: Advising leadership of organizations on how to compose a social media branding and communications group within the company, assessing who is qualified to be on such a team of proficient members, and how to facilitate their buy-in on becoming the brand ambassadors that reflect the image you wish for them to set the tone of – on your behalf – in the marketplace
Room for Improvement
- While the training can exist for various platforms, there are some basic and common sense concepts that – by the time you see them – can be regarded as already having been taught. When you go thru this program, it’s as if those in charge of this established training project simply revisited the same topics and attempted to make the training longer by rehashing old ideas in a simply different way. (Unfortunately, there aren’t that many variations or ways to see something in each platform, so it’s no surprise that this is a common complaint.)
- While some major platforms in social media incorporate Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others, the Hootsuite training platform appeared to have severely over-emphasized Twitter – as was evident by the number of videos that speak more to the use of Twitter than anywhere else.
- I’m of the school of thought that hashtag use is different for Twitter than it might be for Instagram and/or Facebook. Even if I didn’t see things that way, I personally stand convinced that this training video series (all pre-recorded, by the way) fails to identify distinct differences, purposes, or recommendations on when each social media platform can – or should – be used.
Strong Options for Social Media Marketing Strategies (That Work!!!)
Aside from the con’s section above, there are some strong fundamentals delivered in this training course on social media.
To illustrate, one point made is to establish a good post with your current audience – as doing this is better than doing nothing at all, and is certainly more sound of an option than not giving value with a crummy post.
There is a unique skill that can be developed, however, and that’s the ability to use the parameters and options within the opportunities to post that can reach, captivate, and draw in repeat and new audiences (alike) routinely.
One example of this is implementing viralfindr.com to expand one’s social media audience – said another way, one’s following on the various social media platforms.
Once a potentially viral image is found that is specifically relevant to your industry or niche or audience following, connect with groups (for example) on Facebook and exchange likes for their social media imagery so that organic boosting occurs – because, as more and more people refer to post, then more and more of an audience base can be reached as that image gets shared massively.
Feeds will be filled – eventually – with the image that was once posted and viral action can take flight.
Thus, when properly executed, followers and fans come rather quickly to your page.
All this and more are offered inside of the Hootsuite Training Platform.
The Importance of Social Media Marketing: Is It Really Important or A Myth?
Branding can be one of many, countless reasons that companies choose to build their good name on the social media marketing strategies published on the world wide web – or anywhere else they can find what seems to be good advice (even if the source isn’t as sound as one might hope it to be).
See, people are so hungry to make deals happen and expand their bottom line that they’re willing to try anything – for a time. Further, they’re willing to look anywhere and pay attention to anyone that’s actually discussing their topic of interest or concern.
Frighteningly, there could be no better prime candidate to be subjected to misinformation than to spin their tires following that poor advice and financially losing out on what they were hoping was going to be their big media break and attention was going to flow their way rapidly.
See, in the law of reciprocity – a concept that should be found in the notional college course of Sales 101 – social media follows this concept where you bring absolutely free value to your following first…
In return, a percentage (%) of those people that see your free content might actually buy into your service or product; when you give, there are people in this world that still feel a semblance of duty to give back to someone that has given them so much!
Therefore, anything educational, inspiring, or entertaining seem to be the winning options for viral content on social media; these categories of postings can serve really well – and for many companies (without naming names here), they already have.
Unless you’re executing some paid advertising strategies (namely, Facebook Ads spending) on these social media platforms, businesses that seek a consistent flow of new and/or returning customers via social media marketing might be slightly disappointed with their results in short order.
When they offer a service or product – instead of one of the above types of content – buyers may not necessarily flock to the company that is only talking about their product and how great their product is.
It’s not about the seller; it’s about the buyers, their interests and needs!
Whether an attendee or participant of social media events or habits are present for the convenience factor, to kill time, or simply interact with friends, family, and/or neighbors through the digital platforms, the one thing they’re missing to be prime targets for business transactions is…
They’re not thinking of buying anything from you when chillin’ on social media!
They’re just not – take my word on this…
Would you rather be spending your hard-earned business investment and/or advertising, marketing, and sales budgets attempting to figure out a great offer for your business to realize an attention-grabbing paid ads campaign that is sure to get
Though, unfortunately, the attention could still not result in your getting buyers from your efforts in the social media platforms
It’s because the social media account holders and active users are not thinking about buying anything – let alone your specific product – conversation rates (meaning getting web traffic to become a buyer) are ridiculously low by seemingly popular expectation among business owners.
With this lack of desire to spend money, comes a progressive interest in simply consuming free content or killing a little bit of time with a habit that’s easy to shift to doing – especially with the growth in possession of smartphones society-wide.
Therefore, to make this online marketing thing work for local business owners, you’ve gotta ultimately bring customers to a product or service whom are actively searching for that product, service, and or company.
Basically, it’s called Attraction Marketing, or pull-thru marketing.
So instead of spending your hard earned marketing dollars on social media ads and trying to find a winning ad and target audience that will workout for what you have, want, and/or need…
The simple solution is to stop wasting your effort where people aren’t actually in need of you.
Instead, I’d like to invite you to consider placing your good name and assets in places where those seeking what you have are actually, actively, and already (of their own volition) wanting to spend money on what you might have.
The location for this? Google search results!
You can establish digital billboards that can rank to the top of google search results and attract buyers to your brand and/or offer.
The name of the game is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and it’s the prime choice for finding buyers in 2019.
All you would do is get a website online and rank it for what the industry refers to as “buyer-intent keywords.” See this image for an example of a buyer intent keyword.
The aforementioned photograph is a snippet from a real google search qwery online, and it is a prime example of the idea of buyer-intent keywords. Most likely, someone is taking their time to find a plumber close to them because they are genuinely needing someone with that type of skill.
Do you think something like this can have more of a positive impact on a company’s bottom line than some social media marketing and branding strategy?
Maybe…
Maybe not…
Here’s what I do know…
When you can build a web property, and know how to move it up the Google search results listings in short order, being found as the first option for buyers that need some assistance, this can directly impact the revenue of a company must faster, and perhaps on a more massive scale (for the better).
This local lead generation business model is something that I’ve been actively building to $50,000.00 in passive income, on a part-time basis, without the use of social media – either paid or free strategies.
Further, my business currently – and habitually – facilitates the clients we have (which are local small businesses) to double or triple…
And in some instances, QUADRUPLE their net revenue, also without the implementation of any social media marketing strategy(ies).
Some of the people I hold as clients currently have been very open and honest about advising me that they have, in fact, attempted to implement social media marketing – and they have even hired out their accounts and managing privileges to self-proclaimed, proficient social media marketers – whom failed to accomplish anything in terms of the organization’s bottom line.
So it just may be a myth that every organization requires social media in order to become a success.
Although it can help with branding and making available for their ideal customers another alternative by which they can reach out to the business and request services…
And who wouldn’t at least set them up because they’re free to open and maintain…
The bottom line for a business can be more readily impacted outside of social media use, so no – not all business owners need to engage in social media use with the hope of turning a profit.
In many cases, they could be simply spinning their tires in mud and getting dirty without any realistic, measurable expectation of a return on investment (ROI) in terms of their time or resources given to social media.
If you’re open to local lead generation and ranking websites that are simple to piece together, yet extremely effective in attracting buyers – remember, those are the people already looking for the product or service that is being offered – then there could be an opportunity for you to get started with our coaching program that teaches people how to do exactly this and begin profiting with this online business model.
Conclusion
If there were ever an opportunity to find an organization that makes available to entrepreneurs the absolute beginner basics of impelemting social media marketing, then the Hootsuite University Academy is your one-stop shop.
However, and again this is my opinion, the training is rather basic in terms of social media marketing strategies.
Yes, there are more advanced social media marketing strategies floating around on the world wide web and a lot of them can be used to grow your following in various paces and to varying degrees of size.
If you keep things simple and basic for business purposes, you can do okay for yourself; however, I’d still highly recommended exploring and implementing some advanced social media considerations in short order.
The marketplace is changing constantly, and so are the different social media platforms.
And, as the social media platforms change little, fine tuning adjustments, that are seemingly harmless, change can help or hurt a business’ image and/or bottom line.
So keep it simple to start, but go advanced soon.
Why do I say this, you ask?
If you’re serious about growing your customer base…
And I’m specifically referring to more than just followers that connect exclusively for entertainment purposes…
To land a following that loyally, actively seeks you out to hand you dollars for whatever it is you are looking to provide to the buyer…
Maybe social media marketing isn’t the strongest option for you.
The alternative to basic social media strategies include…
- Being awesome at perfecting paid social media ads strategies and having the sufficient capital to constantly test until you find a winning formula
- Being so stellar at fabricating video content from scratch that you can get any of your pieces posted online and have it go viral nearly instantly
For most businesses, I’m sorry to say, they don’t always have these skills themselves, don’t have anyone on staff that was hired to do something like this on behalf of the company, and/or simply don’t know where to begin with both of the aforementioned points.
If you fall under one of the two categories above that aren’t the most primed to make organic social media work for you in short order – due to posting highly-engaging content multiple times a day, all day, every day, for nearly 5 years (and even then, there’s no guarantee of building something organically)…
Then I’d like to recommend that you focus on local lead generation; this means generating Free Organic Web Traffic from search results with YouTube or Google as your parent entities – since they tend to have a lot of organic traffic on so many topics that you could probably weasel your way into landing a few of those visitors in short order.
Why Local Lead Generation Has My Heart Above All Other Business Models in 2019
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I operate and own a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Local Lead Generation business which facilitates the expansion of more than 50 local small businesses. This gets done by simply bringing them much more customers than they’ve ever experienced having before.
How can I do this?
It’s simple, really…
Remember the discussion earlier in this blog article about buyer-intent keyword search terms…
I’m good at finding what’s most likely going to work for those, and then I:
- Post Lead Gen Sites Online
- Super Glue them to the Top Position in Google Search Results
- Let the profits come to me month after month, and year after year
Without messing around with people who are doing nothing more than goofing off with social media platforms right now, I can position a company to get in front of those ideal customers whom carry their cash (or payment methods, like credit cards) in-hand and their hearts are set on asking for service support to accomplish whatever it is they’re looking to knock out.
However, social media seems so popular these days…
Why is that?
In reality, these platforms are so easy to get lost in with habitual daily use, that business owners tend to lose sight of what is most important…
What’s most important is a Ringing Phone with Buyers Calling and Asking for Help!
It’s because of the simplicity of these social media platforms that it can seem as if your social media marketer is taking aggressive action that some can claim they’re most certain will bring in customers.
However, those are easy things that anyone can do once they’re familiar with the steps necessary to post to any of the major social media accounts (and they’re really easy to use).
What’s easy, unfortunately, may not always be worthwhile.
On another blog I’ve written, I’ve open stated that nothing in this world that is a worthwhile venture is going to come easy.
That’s some sound advice for even myself to live by – and I’m the successful entrepreneur saying it, too.
If you’re looking for a business model that is sure to deliver these kinds of results, imagine the benefits that could come from this kind of online business venture, and the profits that may come which can allow you to…
- Make more money than doctors and lawyers on a monthly, predictable, passive income style of part-time work (in fact, I know some people that are making those kinds of salaries on a monthly basis… I’m not kidding)
- Work anywhere you’d like (No territorial restrictions)
- Work whenever you’d want to (No set schedule for entrepreneurs)
- Generate PASSIVE INCOME that will allow you to not worry about your bottom line if you have to take a sick day from work, or ya wanna take a vacation and extend your stay a little longer
- QUIT Your 9 to 5 like I did shortly after this business model was bringing in the same $35,000.00 salary that I was slaving away for all-day, every day, and all week, every week for someone that would rather hold my job ransom so I fall in-line with the demands of my boss
I’ve never found another line of work where you can start a business that’s all your own, while owning all the digital properties for such a low overhead, work this business model part-time, and enjoy a full-time income with the time freedom afforded to those that get started with us.
Think you’re ready to make a positive change in your life and start making a living while making a difference in the lives of those owning local small businesses???
Check out this coaching program that teaches you, step-by-step, exactly what I have done – from the same guy that taught me this wild and awesome business model – with local lead generation, using Free Traffic made possible from SEO strategies in Google to make small business owners rich with the referrals you bring to their door!