“Start with the end in mind.”
Those 6 words contain a piece of business advice, which is of more commercial value than many entire books on business success. The information in that simple, short sentence, could have saved many businesses from going broke and transformed many struggling businesses into super-star success stories.
By focusing with clarity on your desired end result, before starting something new, you massively increase your chances of success. However, many businesses will, for example, start a new marketing campaign, introduce a new service or maybe start a new blog / website – with only a vague idea of what they actually want to achieve.
With only a fuzzy picture of what they want to achieve, it’s very hard to know if they are even on target or not. It’s like setting off on a journey “up north” for the first time, without the address of the destination. You might know that you need to head north, but that’s not enough information – You need an address if you ever want to find the place.
Social media can be low leverage
I am seeing this more and more with businesses deciding to invest huge amounts of time and effort on social networking / social media, with no clear idea why. They will start blogging, using LinkedIn, FaceBook or Twitter – simply because they think they should. However, without a clear goal for all that effort, you can waste a LOT of time and effort! Social media can be a very low leverage activity and can eat into a vast amount of your time, unless you start with the end in mind.
In the past few weeks, several people with massive social networks have called or emailed me, asking what I think they should do “to monetize” their following. One guy, with over 40,000 followers on Twitter has told me that he is investing an amazing 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, building his Twitter network and has almost forgotten why he even started! Here’s what he told me;
To be honest Jim, I started off without a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve, so I just decided to get as many followers as possible. Now, I have all these followers, but 99% of them are not even in the market for my services; which is pretty niche.
Twitter focus
I started off using Twitter, in order to offer another channel of communication for the community of people who read my blog and my newsletter. Because of the number of readers I have, I soon gained a massive following.
Initially, I followed them all back and then quickly realised that I was following over 20,000 people, which was too time consuming. Because I had a clear picture of what I wanted to achieve from Twitter, I was able to literally reset my Twitter account (and delete the 23,500 “follows” I had too,) knowing with 100% certainty that I had made the right decision.
Before you start off with a new project, make sure you have a crystal clear idea of what you want to achieve from it.
You can only remain on target, if you know what your target is.
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Hi there Jim,
Thank you for your article. Totally agree with you especially because lately I started to ask myself similar questions. It all started when I launched my new blog and a friend of mine that has over 30k follower on Twitter, posted a tweet about my blog and about me. The next day I only had few more followers and a little over 100 visitors to my blog (the day before that I had about 85). So my question was : how many people really follow him ? (this is also the subject of my latest article
). I see so many people with thousands of followers but now makes me wonder if they can help that person achieve something.
I only have 1,2k followers but I would be so glad if 500 of them would click my links. That is why I redefined what I want from Twitter and now I’m only following people that are strictly from my niche. For all the others I will create a “trace” by posting related tweets and related articles – so they can find me via search.
ill agree with you. and note that fun is key to using any social media. how can u possibly have fun with 20K Followers. its like going to a convention and not really meeting people. i enjoy the people i meet i Twitter and elsewhere in social media. smaller numbers but good connections are better. as those folks will retweet or pass along something they feel is important to their more dedicated smaller following too.
Toma,
You make a great point, regarding the quality of your network. Quality is what counts.
Matt,
I really like your point about having too many Twitter followers and liking it to attending a massive convention and not ‘really’ connecting with anyone.
Thanks for the comments!!
I tweeted a quote from Winston Churchill yesterday on twitter that said “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
This quote I think is very appropriate to what you are saying about setting clear goals and objectives. Twitter, Facebook or whatever social media technology you are using is a process not a result and sometimes we can get really distracted by the nice flashy ways that these applications work without first understanding why you are using it.
Great post Jim.
I think if twitter allowed you to filter users into channels (a common request) it would greatly reduce the overload of having too many people that you follow.
I blog about pens, notebooks, and office supplies, and I’m certain that only a small % of people that follow me actually go to my site to check out any updates.
If given a way to categorize all the folks I follow on twitter, it would be easier to set a clear goal and stick to it. For example if I had an issue with my blog and needed technical pointers, I could go to a category of my users that only talked about that, same as if I only wanted to spend an hour searching for news related to my blog’s topic, or if I wanted to just catch up on general news.
Anyway, great post, and I think that as social media evolves it will help its users to be more efficient in using it.
I think that’s why so many people have multiple Twitter accounts.
I have a second account for my tech news blog http://thetechnewsblog.com because the subject matter is totally different.
You can follow that account at @thetechnewsblog
Thanks for the comment!
Things like twitter are just another tool. And as with any tool you have figure out how you want to use it. This involves a plan. Now it doesn’t have to be to serious and you can have fun to but there should be goals and you should have a way to measure the results. Maybe clicks to your site from your twitter profile (not from pitching yourself but from networking and people just being interested).
Great post, thank you! I fell into the ‘how many ppl can I follow on twitter’ trap and realized, that without a specific goal in mind, it’s just like going to a party and ’small talk’ all evening.
At this point I am not sure what to do with twitter. It’s a great platform to make connections for sure but for me there is too little ROI. I am curious to find out how you use twitter to advance your biz?
This is a great post Jim. Having a clear strategy definitely helps people attain their goals and in return be happier with what they are doing. Obviously, everyone’s goals and strategies are different and as long as people are achieving their end results, they should be fine. Not knowing what you want before you start something it’s not the way to go and “yes” it could be a waste of time. When it comes to social media sites, everyone has the right to use them however they want. I don’t believe there is such thing as a perfect twitter or facebook etiquette. Having said this, sometimes it pisses me off when I hear people saying that following back everyone on twitter and accepting everyone in facebook as a friend are the right things to do. Again, the ways people use their social media sites vary according to their end goals. When it comes to twitter, I only follow those people I want to learn from or are close to me in some way. I can’t follow too many as I feel that the more people I follow the harder it is for me to provide value to my followers and actually pay attention to those I really want to listen to. I get people all the time that are following me and send me a tweet once and simply because I don’t follow them back right away, they unfollow me. To start, those people don’t really know me and just because their twitter standards dictate to follow right away those who tweet them once doesn’t mean I think the same way. It all comes down to this, the people that really want to learn and listen from you, will follow you regardless and the rest will go. As long as people provide value and helpful content, they will always have loyal followers. I run my facebook account the same way. I only have close friends or people I really want to learn from in my network.
Hi Jim,
You have drafted an excellent article herein, Thank You.
I do use and believe in Social Media as an excellent way to market our small boutique apartment management business, but it is not an end all to fame and fortune. It is merely another way of Participating in the Conversation with our Residents and Prospects.
I also enjoy twitter, however I wonder how some folks are surviving by tweeting for hours and hours everyday.
Business and Commerce reward leaders and producers, which have little to no correlation to followers.
Eric,
You make a couple of excellent points. The comment you made, how you wonder how some people manage to run a business and tweet for hours each day, is interesting. I blogged recently, about how someone lost a project they were tendering for, because their prospective client saw that they were tweeting until the small hours of the morning.
Great post Jim and very timely for me. Just spoke with potential client yesterday about web marketing project and brought up social media as way to support other efforts. Client had started using Twitter already but no plan and it was a big mess for them for many of the reasons you discussed in this post and your post on why you started over with Twitter. I suggested they also start over with Twitter, this time with a plan that correlates with their overall marketing plan. Also advised them to stop using it as broadcast advertising and promotion vehicle and start using it as way to build selective relationships with others who are interested in what you’re tweeting about, voluntarily opt-in to hear what you have to say and want to pass on valuable info to their followers. LISTEN to those you follow and give valuable, actionable information to those who follow you and the rewards will come.
Couldn’t get any more Clearer than this my friend..
Hope you guys got the message!
Norman Flecha
Straight Talk
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