When I’m meeting with new clients who are considering using social media as a part of their marketing efforts, I often hear the same objections. Below is my response to the most common complaint, “I don’t have time for social media.”
Objection: Social media is a waste of time / I don’t have time for social media
Social media is only a waste of time if you let it be a waste of time. Businesses need to be very clear about their social media goals so they know where to focus their time and efforts.
Most people who say social media is a waste of time don’t know why they’re on social networks and get lost in the flurry of tweets, updates and videos. They aren’t sure how to build their following or interact with their network. And they spend all their time viewing what other people are doing instead of reaching out and connecting.
Do you think you don’t have time for social media? Have you thought about the potential results that social media could achieve for your business? Most business owners appreciate the value of word-of-mouth advertising. Social media is the ultimate form of word-of-mouth advertising.
In traditional word-of-mouth advertising, Jane tells John how much she likes the Mexican Restaurant on Main Street and then John becomes a customer and tells Joe and Joe tries the restaurant the next week.
Social media works the same way, only when Jane loves the Mexican Restaurant, she checks in on Foursquare and then proceeds to Tweet to her network of 500 followers to tell them they should check it out. John sees Jane’s tweet and decides to try the restaurant. He posts a picture of the amazing margarita he’s enjoying at Happy Hour on Facebook and 300 of his friends see the post and consider visiting the restaurant.
Spending even a few minutes a day interacting on social media can help you create an engaged community or network.
There are many tools that can help you effectively manage your social media and save you time. TweetDeck and HootSuite are free programs that integrate all of your social media platforms into one place. You can schedule Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn updates and receive notifications when your followers and fans share information and interact with you.
Other tools help you find the right people to follow, give detailed statistics on your network’s engagement and show the growth of your community.
Do you still think you don’t have time for social media? How can you NOT have time for it?
If you’re interested in reading more about how social media can save you TIME and MONEY, get a copy of my FREE ebook– 7 Ways Social Media Will Save You Time and Money
Lindsay, your question here got me thinking for a moment. I think that the issue here is not really ‘a waste of time’ – but, it’s proper distribution of time. For example, in my case, I have suffered this so-called social media fatigue a year ago, long before folks are writing about it today. I then took matters in my own hands to create a fix for it and I’m glad I did. So now, I’m following the 80/20 rule- as in 80% conversation and 20% automation. I think that people are stressed out in keeping their accounts active everyday by posting and scheduling updates, when they should have been spending that time instead to simply enjoy having a conversation online – for real.
I see where you’re coming from, Aaron. Quite a few of my clients who suffer social media fatigue have no strategy for what they’re trying to accomplish on social media (or they have a very unfocused idea of what they’re trying to accomplish).
Not all businesses need to be on every single social media site and I always think that BAD social media is worse than NO social media.
Automating parts of the process certainly helps reduce fatigue…as long as you don’t go too far and are still interacting. 80/20 sounds like a good rule of thumb!
Thanks for sharing your opinion!