The Truth About Social Media (It Doesn't Drive Sales)

In our modern society, social media has changed how people do business online.

It offers so many promises of opportunity that sometimes people ignore its flaws and forget its limitations.

Yes, social media is a powerful tool to help market a brand. But behind the beautiful truths about the power of social media, there are also some ugly truths about it that you should be aware of if you are to succeed.

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. offer free membership in their websites. BUT you still need to invest time, effort, and money in maintaining and managing your social networking sites. You have to be hands-on or hire someone to do it. It requires hard work and consistent effort over a dedicated period of time. You usually won’t see results immediately so you have to be patient and build it slowly while monitoring and measuring your online visibility.

As you establish yourself on your social sites; you will be exposed not only to your prospective clients but to detractors as well. You will gain more readers as well as critics so expect that you will receive more criticism and negative comments from other bloggers, users, etc.

Some studies say that social media is an effective marketing tool to draw in a much larger audience and qualified leads. However in my research and experience with clients, I find that although it is good to have a healthy online presence, unless you run a completely online business, social media will not be nearly as big a factor in your sales as traditional direct mail. Yes, I know it sounds out dated but the results speak for themselves.

For example…if you were interested in getting some plastic surgery done, would you look for your surgeon on facebook? Absolutely not. And you probably would not care about who the coolest Twitter surgeon was either. However if you did an online search, found a clean and professional website and called or filled in a box for more information and received a “real” letter and information in the mail answering your questions, that would make you feel more comfortable about what decision you might want to make.

I’m not saying social media is bad, there is still a place in your business for it. But to make use of its overall potential, it should be incorporated with other marketing strategies like Search engine optimization, content writing, keyword research, brand reputation, etc.

So in conclusion, social media is a great tool for connecting you with your friends, fans and followers, but it isn’t where you want to spend the bulk of your time if you want to make sales.