I have an addendum to yesterday’s “enough-with-the-social-media-blitzkrieg” rant.
One of the keys to social media marketing, we are told, is engagement. “It’s a conversation, not a speech,” they say. We are told not to simply push out information, but to engage people, befriend them, earn their trust, and eventually invite them to see what we do.
But what if we don’t want to have a conversation? What if we don’t want to engage? What if we want to use social media to make a speech, for fun, or not at all?
Will we be visited by the social media police? Will our Facebook privileges be revoked? We we be remonstrated by a 26 year old billionaire and told we’re not worthy of being online?
The truth is, engaging on social media is only one way to bring clients to your tent. It’s not the only way.
I just hired a new accountant and a new dentist. Neither one engaged with me before I hired them, on social media or otherwise. One was a referral, the other was found through search. In both cases, I looked at online reviews posted by other clients and patients. It don’t think the CPA or the dentist engaged with them, either.
Could they bring in even more clients by engaging on social media? I’m sure they could. I know a lot of professionals who bring in a lot of traffic and clients with social media marketing. They chat and share throughout the day, and they love it. They are successful, no doubt, because they love it.
If I were to guess, I would say there are many more professionals who use social media sparingly, like I do, or don’t use it at all. Are we missing out on something big? My friends who bring in a lot of business through social would say absolutely, and urge us to get on the bandwagon. So, should we force ourselves to do something we don’t want to do? If we don’t love it, like they do, should we do it anyway?
No.
Don’t let anyone tell you how you must use social media in your practice, or that you must use it at all.
