As I follow conversation in the social media space, I remain surprised that so many of us seem to be in a fog regarding our goals. Often a topic of conversation, ratings/rankings drive at least some of us into a dense fog where we see nothing but the social media universe, which is so tiny that it is but an ant in a business world made up of gazelles and elephants mixed in with smaller versions of the quick and the strong (or not so quick or strong).
Here is my question: If we are concerned with Technorati Authority, links and top 25 or 150 lists, what is our end game?
I ask because most in my SM universe are in business, many of us consultants, many of us marketing consultants and some of us social media marketing/communications consultants. If one of our concerns is either links or lists or both, what are we thinking and are we spending time fruitfully?
Potential clients and customers don't know about or care about our rankings or our Authority. They care about how we can help them get new business or get them noticed. So instead of spending even a second thinking about how to assuage our own egos, shouldn't we instead be spending whatever time we work in our social media space creating content that demonstrates how we can help other businesses? And when we aren't doing that, shouldn't we be spending the remainder of our SM time growing relationships that are mutually beneficial to both sides in terms of sharing ideas, learning how to better do what we do, and creating an environment for leads and referrals?
Last question: Why would we spend our most important capital (time) online doing anything other than those two things?
My point: If our SM time isn't getting us leads, referrals or new business, we are wasting time and need to reconsider at least four things:
- Our mission.
- Our goals.
- Our SM execution and the results that execution deliver.
- And how much time we invest vs. results.
Your thoughts? Ideas? Questions?
Author's Note: You might legitimately ask if this post fits into the sphere that I am criticizing? In other words, writing about Authority, links and lists can be seen as getting lost in the fog. My response: This post falls into the sharing with my peers category, which is one of the two areas I believe are legitimate business uses of time:
- Demonstrating our expertise by sharing smart business content with potential customers and clients.
- Growing relationships that are mutually beneficial to both sides in terms of sharing ideas, learning how to better do what we do, and creating an environment for leads and referrals
