Jay LeonardEver play that old game Lemmings?
The objective of the game is to guide a group of humanoid lemmings through a number of obstacles to a designated exit.
You have to use certain number of lemmings to guide the rest.
Get them to change directions, build a bridge before the group comes towards the big gaping hole, drill a hole in the ground before they fall off the cliff, etc.
I loved that game as a kid, because
- it was fun
- I always thought, “wouldn’t it be funny if people did this in real life?”
Until i started doing business.
I found that it wasn’t all that funny after a while.
I’m not talking just startups and newbie entrepreneurs, i’m talking even solar manufacturing giants that even do $100m in revenue.
Every time people hear online marketing, they think
- ‘create the most awesome facebook fan page’
- ‘get on twitter’
- ‘we need to hire social media manager’
- ‘put more videos on youtube’
And all I can think of is this picture:
Why on earth do people say and do the same thing?
Of course, the nice guy part of me wants to put myself in front of these people and say “NO!!!!”, but i know the weight of these damn lemmings will push me in the water too.
Digital Sharecropping
If you’ve never heard the term before, it’s similar to sharecropping in the old slavery days.
Sharecropping is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. This encouraged tenants to work to produce the biggest harvest that they could, and ensured they would remain tied to the land and unlikely to leave for other opportunities.
In the South, after the Civil War, many black families rented land from white owners and raised cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, and rice. In many cases, the landlords or nearby merchants would lease equipment to the renters, and offer seed, fertilizer, food, and other items on credit until the harvest season. At that time, the tenant and landlord or merchant would settle up, figuring out who owed whom and how much.
High interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and unscrupulous landlords and merchants often kept tenant farm families severely indebted, requiring the debt to be carried over until the next year or the next. Laws favoring landowners made it difficult or even illegal for sharecroppers to sell their crops to others besides their landlord, or prevented sharecroppers from moving if they were indebted to their landlord.
With end of slavery, sharecropping has ended, right?
Not at all.
Ever hear of renting?
If you think about it.. that’s sharecropping.
You rent the place in exchange for a portion of your income. You pay down the mortgage and house appreciates. X number of years later, he sells the property and he keeps all the profits.
Granted, you’re landlord isn’t going to hang you upside down and whip you, or burn you with a hot branding iron, but you get the point.
Social Media, the NEW (Digital) Sharecropping
You do ALL the work to create the content (which by the way, is very hard) in exchange for audience.
They get the benefit of advertising and large network effect, and you get well.. nada.
Fact
Go ahead and feel free to read TOS (terms of service) clauses for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc etc.
You do NOT own those pages OR the content you posted on them (even if they are pictures of your baby’s face).
In fact, they can shut your page down whenever they FEEL like it.
They don’t need to give you any reasons, and in fact, they have done it so many times.
Just google “facebook page shut down” and you will a plethora of these digital roadkills.
So why on earth would anyone want to be a digital sharecropper?
Beats me.
But, it seems like people want to enter this slavery.
So if you are part of that group, here’s the definitive guide to being one.
The Definitive Guide to
Being a Digital Sharecropper
1) Spend all your time making content on social media
Ideally, you should spend 1/2 of your marketing team’s time on making a pretty Facebook cover page.
And never send out that tweet or post unless you get the approval from all the C-level execs (especially your VP of marketing)
Don’t waste time on your own website, or god forbid, you actually link to it to a sale page.
NO. That’s not kosher.
Remember, social media is the center of your business world.
And your website isn’t an asteroid.. or even the moon… it’s just a piece of ripped shirt worn by a space monkey … floating aimlessly in space.
If you have time from social media, make sure you pay utmost attention to the monkeys.
Give them attention and make sacrificial offerings to the monkey gods.
They will be quite pleased.
And we all know, happy monkey gods = good business.
2) Spend money running ads to your Facebook page or Twitter account
Yes, having large of fans is quite critical to business success.
1000 fans? Not enough, you need 100,000 fans.
Go ahead and spend $5 per fan.
Facebook and Twitter people quite poor for clicks that really do matter to your business.
I mean, come on.. 4000 sq. ft house in middle of the most expensive neighborhood in America?
That’s borderline 3rd world country poverty level.
Remember, these fans are worth every dime and penny, especially from Indonesia and Bangladesh, where your business will eventually relocate to in about 5000 years. (Think long term)
Forget trying to get real sales leads, because that’s not what your sales team needs.
No, your marketing team need a good pat on the head because they spent their entire lives in drug rehab and they need the assurance that they too can be someone.
But wait, it gets better.
Now social media sites are demanding that you pay, if you want to reach the fans that you bought in the first place.
Engineers at these companies can’t be seen in porsche and mercedes.
That’s just wrong.
It is up to us to make it right – the only human thing to do is make sure they get a tesla.
And if you think paying Facebook to drive traffic to itself is smart, wait.. there’s a better solution: be real smart about advertising and buy ads on Google and drive traffic to Facebook.
Now, THAT’s using your brain.
3) Trying to game the “algorithm” that you will never really know or understand
You’re in the business of gaming.
In fact, you go to Vegas and try to count cards.
You got beaten up by the casino thugs, got your name permanently banned by all the casinos, and the Russian mobs want you dead for non-payment.
You couldn’t manage to outsmart bunch of casino people, yet you know that you can outsmart 50k+ engineers that work at these tech companies.
Google changing their algorithm? Buffy, Cassandra, Dewey, Panda?
Psssh.. no problem. More link wheels, spun articles, outsourced content (written in English that no one can understand), blog comment spam, hidden links, keyword stuffing, paid links, etc etc.
Facebook changing it’s algorithmm?
Pssh… no problem. Ask questions, ask people to hit like, use images, etc etc.
4) Focusing, analyzing, and improving only on the social metrics
Stuff that matters.. your conversion funnel and analytics, forget that.
Who taught you that crap anyway?
What matters is that you look at when your fans are online.. how engaged they are with your posts… how many likes/retweets/reposts you got, and of course, who mention you.
No no, forget closing ratios.. forget cost per acquisition.. forget conversion rates…. forget that all that making money talk.
Remember, your goal is to be a digital sharecropper
5) Most importantly, don’t invest time & content to your own website & blog
OH wait… what? write stuff?
Be a thought leader like Oprah?
Provide value?
Tell the world that you know your stuff?
Have an interesting story to tell?
Why on earth would you do THAT?
So don’t even BOTHER.
OK.. if you haven’t noticed, i was being sarcastic
Let I really meant was
1) Yes, be social but focus on what matters, YOUR website.
Your website is the only asset that you have FULL control over.
No one can take that away from you.
Your website is the center of your digital marketing, and all this social stuff is the satellite to your home base.
Remember social media will come and go (remember Friendster, MySpace, Digg, etc etc..).
So never forget to invest into your OWN website.
2) Don’t buy fans.
Thats ridiculous.
Do you do that in real life?
“Hey I run ABC company.. i’ll give you $5 to like me”.
If you’re going to spend any money, use the ads the promote your message that gets traffic BACK to your website.
3) Don’t try and game the system
This is a game that you WILL lose on.
It’s not matter of if.. but matter of when.
4) Focus on metric for YOUR website.
Don’t improve Facebook. Don’t improve Twitter.
Stop giving them content AND your brains.
Use it analyze YOUR stuff.
5) Write quality stuff
If internet is the information highway, your website is like the little store on the highway.
Not everyone is going to stop there, but some will.
And when they do, they will see what you got.
If you show them crap, do you think they will give you business? No.
You don’t have to be as interesting as Mr.T, but at least tell the world who you are and what led you to your business.
Key Takeaway
Invest into your OWN content. Your OWN email list. Your OWN analytics. Your OWN asset that cannot be taken away from you by anyone.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
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