What would you say if an author was working on a new book, but they spent all their time around the water cooler chatting?

You’d probably tell them they were wasting their time. Because chit-chatting doesn’t create books.

Now, what if that author was taught that the chit-chatting was important for their marketing? So, they went out and spent several hours doing this chit-chatting with the excuse that it was somehow important. Yet, STILL… from the outside, you’d probably be thinking, “But, what a minute…. chit-chatting doesn’t create books, does it? And isn’t an author supposed to, you know, like… write a book?”

Welcome to the confusion which is online business.

Where do you spend your time?

Do you spend your time tweeting, sharing, liking and pinning? All the “social media gurus” will tell you how important it is. But, then you’re sitting there looking at your old dusty blog and see that not much is happening. Traffic isn’t much to speak of. You have no time to create offers or products. You don’t have anything to build your list with. In fact, your email list building remains on your “Things I know I should do but don’t have the time” list.

Oh, but TWEETING… that shit is important!

Or so they’ll tell you.

Everybody’s a guru now, apparently.

No, I’ll tell you what social media marketing REALLY is to most budding online entrepreneurs. It is an easy out. It is an excuse. It is the easy and fun stuff to do so you can avoid the real work.

Is social media marketing a complete waste of your time? No, but it is pretty damn far down the totem poll of priorities.

So, where SHOULD you be spending your time?

Let’s look at this logically.

If you want to build a business and make money, then what do you need? What is a business?

Well, a business is a provider of goods and/or services to people who need or want it. So, there are two things needed in this equation:

  1. A relationship with people who need and want the things you’re looking to provide.
  2. An offer. Something to sell to them.

That’s what you need.

Now, the blog falls into #1 above. It is a magnet to bring the RIGHT people to you by way of providing content solutions to the things they’re looking for. Then, you get them onto your email list so that you can build the relationship.

A blog and an email list.

Then, you need something to sell. You need an offer.

So, where should you be spending your time?

You should be working on building your email list, building customer relationships (not just any ol’ connection, but connection to the right people), and creating things to sell to them.

Period. That’s what builds businesses.

If you’re tweeting and Facebooking so much that you don’t have time for your email list, don’t wonder why your business isn’t making any money.

If you’re writing so much on Google Plus that you’re not putting useful, relevant content on your blog, designed to give your blog a long-term asset which can attract the right kind of prospects over time and hopefully entice them to join your email list… then don’t wonder why you’re not making any money.

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn… while these platforms have their uses, they are VERY ineffecient means of marketing when compared to less noisy mediums like email. Those platforms are NOISY. The people on there are endlessly distracted and you’re sitting there trying to compete with all of that in some vein attempt to be interesting to people who barely have enough mental energy left to be interested in anything. They’re hypnotized.

Now, before I leave you, I fully realize that social media marketing seems like the best way to build traffic when you don’t have much of any. So, people feel compelled to do it with the hope that people will funnel off and visit the blog. Makes sense.

But…

Let’s be strategic and not lose sight of the ineffecient nature of social media.

Tweeting to grow your online business is like driving on the Autobahn in first gear. (click to tweet that)

Typical social media marketing ends up pulling you in a ton of different directions and talking about anything of interest. Strategic social media marketing focuses on connecting with the RIGHT people for your blog and your business.

Guest post on other blogs. Participate in relevant forum conversations (Google Alerts can help you filter out the crap). Build relationships with others in your marketplace with the aim of mutual assistance. Do interviews. Be very targeted in where you interact, with whom, and why.

And all of it with the strategy in mind… to build your list. THAT’S where the real relationship with prospects gets made.

So, to summarize, here are the big 3 priorities:

  1. Build your list.
  2. Create offers to sell.
  3. Create content for your blog with long-term value to your marketing in mind.

These are the big pieces.

Tweeting and all that stuff? It shouldn’t take up any more than 20 minutes per day at most. The rest of your available time should be spent on the big things which build your empire. And those things are listed above.

 


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