Craig Newmark of Craigslist
Craig Newmark, owner of Craiglist.org
A social media entrepreneur that
does more than sit at home all
day at the computer in his PJs
Image by AP/Stephen Chernin
source Wired

So much has already been written on how powerful of a marketing tool social media can be that I don’t want to spell it all out again here. Visit Problogger, Copyblogger, Dosh Dosh, and sites like those to learn more.

The major downside I see with social media is how much time and effort it can take to create a profit.

For example, I’ve been seeing a lot lately on how to grow your blog. One of the more popular ways is to comment on other people’s blog in order to get those bloggers to in turn visit your blog and read and comment, in other words, return the favor. This is probably one of the best ways to quickly build your comment section and community.

But as an entrepreneur trying to succeed in business and needing to make money, you have to ask yourself, “so this is a community of what exactly?”

The interesting thing about this is that I’ve noticed when I comment on other’s blogs, many of them will come over and comment on mine ( much appreciated! :) ). However, if I stop commenting on their blog it seems they stop commenting on mine.

What does this tell us? Just how targeted is this means of marketing? How long does it take to read 30 blog articles, write your own, comment on your articles and elsewhere, etc.? What is the return on investment? If you’ve put in 5 hours a day blogging only to see you’ve made $20 for the month, that comes out to $0.13 per hour of work working 5 hours a day for 30 days.

OUCH!

If, however, your primary reason for blogging is to create a community and your business path is to simply market your blog and generate some income from there, the above strategy is definitely something you want to do.

The positive side of things is the longer you do this, you’ll end up making more than just $20/month, hopefully.

Other sites like Digg and Stumble Upon are great for getting your blog articles traffic and linked to, but just how targeted is that traffic? Sure the traffic might be targeted for your article, but 9 times out of 10 your blog articles aren’t pushing your product or advertising your services. In fact, authority sites like Problogger show us how we’re not suppose to market directly in social media.

The instant a blogger feels like you’re trying to push your product on them too heavily you risk losing them. When you run a Stumble Upon campaign, for example, the advice is not to push your actual product’s landing page (e.g. web hosting), but rather an article that provides information.

Most people using social media sites are looking for information and news, not a new tea cup.

Investing Time In Social Media Marketing Business-wise

Pros & Cons

By social media marketing, I’m referring to:

  • Spending time creating and marketing a MySpace and Facebook profile
  • Working at getting your articles popular on sites like Digg and Stumble Upon
  • Participating in online forums
  • Guest Blogging
  • Commenting on other blogs to get more comments on yours

As I see it, these are some of the pros and cons of social media marketing. Can you add any?

  • You can work from home
  • You can be a bit lazy
  • Not expensive to do
  • Eventually you can make a name for yourself
  • You gain permission marketing
  • Google gets to know your website better (SEO)
  • Ease to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime
  • Can build relationship marketing
  • Forces you to keep learning
  • Consumes A LOT of your time
  • You can be a bit lazy (yes, that was a pro, too)
  • Business and product growth is typically slow at first
  • Not a direct marketing method
  • Can easily become non-targeted (e.g. you write a great article, unfortunately it has nothing to do with you making money)
  • Not great if you’re anti-social
  • Your community might not buy from you but still require a large portion of your time
  • Need of staying interesting and appearing fresh
  • Your communication skills online could severely hurt you
  • At times can be very non-personable

As I mentioned at the top of this article, the main problem I have with social media marketing is time. It takes SO much time to write articles, read blogs, comment, respond, network on social sites, visit forums, etc. I actually like doing those things (to a point), but as the owner of a web development company and a father of two, it’s very difficult for me to justify spending too much time in social media.

I by no means am putting down social media. Heck, when starting our company our primary focus was to not be corporate and to be more social. I took a hint from Craig Newmark over at Craigslist.org. He’s the “band leader” of Craigslist, so to speak. That’s exactly what I’m doing here at eVentureBiz. I give a face and voice to our company just as he does his.

There are of course success stories out there where entrepreneurs invest most, if not all, of their time in social media marketing. The technology is here to stay and I look forward to see where it goes. I think every entrepreneur needs to be a web entrepreneur to some extent.

The Reason For This Article Is This

I don’t want new younger entrepreneurs thinking they can sit at home in their PJs, build a website, and socialize a little on the Internet and expect to become highly successful.

Can it happen?

Sure, anything’s possible.

T Edwards from Poverty101.net said something that made me think in his comment on my last post:

Getting out and pounding the pavement may not fit the internet business plan but there is definitely a need for a lot of behind the scenes marketing, development, programming, monitoring, revising, etc to build a successful online business.

I do agree that this seems to be the “idea” of social media marketing - the idea that you don’t have to go out and pound the pavement. And you can be successful by not doing so. But for me, Craig Newmark is the ideal web entrepreneur.

He socializes online AND pounds the pavement. That’s how you become highly successful. That’s the difference between $150,000 per year profit and $5 million.

In my next article, we’ll take a look at the way old school entrepreneurs did things and what lessons we can learn from them and how it might apply to building a successful business online.

Share And Enjoy
    del.icio.us Digg StumbleUpon Technorati Subscribe