Social Media

People always want to know how to make money with social media.

The problem is that social media doesn’t make money FOR you. Social media ENABLES YOU to make money…. maybe.

Everybody wants to know how their sales are going to increase once they hire you to create a website or set them up with a presence on Facebook or Twitter.

In Fact… Your sales are NOT going to increase unless a) YOU know what to do with your own internet presence, or b) you HIRE SOMEONE ELSE that knows what they’re doing to handle that aspect of your business for you.

Buying Trophies

In contemplating social media strategies, you have to see yourself as the owner of a race car team and your goal is to win races, thus receiving trophies.

As the owner, you have to decide where you’re going to allocate your budget (money) so you achieve your desired outcome.

If you’re racing in a legitimate organization, you can’t BUY TROPHIES. If you could buy trophies, your competition would be able to buy them too and there would be no reason to run any of the actual races.

Similarly, in social media, you can’t BUY SUCCESS. If you could, everybody would pay some money, receive a positive ROI and there would be no need for professionals at any point of the process.

Unfortunately, this is how a lot of people sell social media to you. They know you know less than they do, so they give you useless tidbits of information and charge you handsomely for “consulting” with them. This is usually the best thing for them to do because if they told you what you REALLY needed to do to be successful with social media, THEY wouldn’t get very much of your money because most of them don’t’ have any of the technical skills necessary to actually DO any of that process for you.

Winning Races

In reality, you have to actually WIN RACES to receive trophies.

What’s the process involved in doing that? o_O

1. You get the trophy by winning the race
2. You win the race by finishing in first place
3. You finish the race by starting the race (driving)
4. You enter the race by having something to drive (a car)
5. You have a car and a driver because you spent MONEY on them

As you can see, you spend your money ENABLING yourself to potentially win. You don’t spend money directly on the WIN.

What does this look like in social media strategy?

The part that people TELL YOU is that you need a website and a Facebook account and a Twitter account. The part that they TELL YOU is that you want people to follow you and the more the merrier.

Budgeting Maintenance

The part that they DON’T TELL YOU is that they’re selling you a car, not a trophy. They’re selling you the ability to MAYBE win.. POSSIBLY…

They also don’t tell you that this isn’t a car show, it’s a race. If it were a car show, you could bring your car to the venue and potentially win a prize for “prettiest car”, or “best paint job”, or “best-built engine”… Being that this is a RACE, it means that you need a DRIVER. o_O

If you’ve already spent money on the car (website), someone has to drive it (maintain your presence). That’s either going to be YOU or someone you hire to maintain your online presence for you.

If you’re going to do it yourself, you’re going to have to spend HOURS each week interacting with customers and potential clients, reading blog posts, writing blog posts, updating your inventory on your site, searching the internet for positive and negative references to your company, checking your statistics to see which items and pages are the most popular and which aren’t doing well, reading and replying to emails, paying attention to the endless flow of twitter posts from the thousands of people you “followed” because some idiot told you to, fielding phone calls and returning voicemails from people that got your number from your website, reading and intelligently replying to comments you receive on your blog, keeping spam and other dumb comments out of your comment section, reading up on the latest technologies for maintaining your presence, spending time on trial & error with new and potentially exciting products…

Thanks For The Money

THIS is what they don’t tell you. They’re’ just like “Give me your money. Here’s your website. Peacebeyotch! :D”. This is why so many people have garbage internet presences, because nobody told them that after you make a blog, you have to populate it and constantly update it. Nobody told them that if you make a site where you’re selling products on the internet, you THEN have to spend your time advertising your product or you need to hire someone else to do that for you.

Nobody told them that if you make a Facebook page and then you don’t actively participate in conversations, you don’t build any rapport and you don’t make any sales. Nobody told them that they needed to participate in conversations that are important to OTHER PEOPLE and not just those that revolve around your being able to sell something and get some money.

Nobody told them that if you follow 3,000 people on Twitter, you’re going to have so many updates that you can’t possibly read all of them, much less contemplate them and reply to them. Guess what? :D .. If you can’t read everything from the 3,000 people you’re following, the people that are following 60,000 people don’t see what YOU WROTE either. o_O

Are You Qualified?

Even if you tried to maintain your own internet presence, how good are you at doing that? How good are you at socializing? How good are you at holding conversations with people? How good are you at SPELLING and GRAMMAR? HAHAHA How good are you at knowing which posts to weigh in on and which to leave alone? How good are you at finding out where people are talking about you or your company, what they’re saying and how you can respond to them? How much time do you have to monitor the internet and respond quickly, giving yourself the appearance of caring as opposed to the appearance of someone that built a car that they don’t know how to drive or built a store that they don’t have time to stock and maintain?

So.. Next time you’re thinking about incorporating social media into your business strategy, recognize that you have to budget not only to BUILD your site, but also to MAINTAIN it.

If you don’t have money to pay someone to maintain your site, either it’s not going to get done or you’re going to have to pay yourself to do it during time that you could have spent billing clients and making your money back.

Either way, nobody’s going to hand you a trophy because you got a website built or because you made a Facebook Fan Page or a Twitter account. That’s not where the work ends. That’s where the work starts.

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The other night, I realized that someone I was aware of via Social Media was going to be at an event I had planned to attend, so I sent her a “Friends Request”.

The last I had paid attention to her online presence, she was living in California, so I figured this was my opportunity to meet her and tell her I enjoyed her work (on-air talent / hostess / reporter) before she flew away again.

So I’m at this event, and someone I don’t recognize walks up to me and says “Hi. You friended me today! :D”. Looking more closely, I realized who she was, greeted her and we started chatting.

Come to find out that a) she’s moved here to NYC, and b) I thought she was “only” on-air talent, but she’s actually a producer, a complimentary position to mine as a video editor.

Her Side

So, what happened here?… Because she was doing what she does naturally, I became aware of her as online talent and someone who’s connected, however vaguely, to what I do as a hobby as well as for work. Personally, I like to give credit where credit’s due, and I’m actually a FAN of very many of my friends who do what we do. So, I was glad to meet her AT ALL. Next, she had a friendly disposition. There are lots of people who are good in front of the camera and horrible in f2f conversation. Third, she was now a New Yorker, which is like when a player gets traded to your home team… you’re suddenly MORE INTERESTED in her career, etc. Fourth, I find out that professionally, we’re in the same field as well as having mutual friends via Social Media that can vouch for her professional talents (or lack thereof!) as well as what kind of person she is, socially.

Therefore, having chatted with her in person for approximately 20 minutes on one day out of my entire life.. Combining that with her “online resume” and the relationships / social capital she’s built via Social Media gives me a very well rounded concept of who she is, what she’s about and where I can immediately get more information if I need it. All of a sudden, I’m much more likely to recommend her to someone who’s looking for a producer on a project. So, while she hasn’t directly monetized her Social Media, meaning I didn’t click on any ads on her site and I didn’t buy any goods or services from her, she’s converted her social capital into professional recognition plus a positive social experience.

My Side

Looking at it from the other angle… Because I’m interested in online video, I became aware of her and a fan of hers. Because I socialize via SM, I found out that she was on the list for a party I was planning to attend, so I “Friended” her. Without those two, I would have been at the same party with her, but wouldn’t have met her. Generally, when I go to crowded events, there are lots of women I don’t meet. There are actually lots of women I don’t even SEE, because I probably know between 20-60 people in that location and never stop interacting with them.

From my conversation with her, I found out even more things I have in common with her socially and professionally, so I also achieved what I’ll call an accidental conversion. I didn’t go to the party to meet a producer that might need an editor for projects, but that’s what happened. I didn’t give her a business card, but I didn’t need to because we’re already connected via Social Media. I don’t carry cards anyway. If people don’t know how to Google “Bill”, I really can’t see what kind of business relationship we could possibly have. :D

Your Side

This is why I was saying I’m a special case when it comes to this. What I do is NECESSARY in the realm of Social Media. People have to make videos. People have to record audio. People have to blog. People have to make connections with other people. Everything they need to do, I do every day, in a quality fashion. My conversion occurs when someone decides to hire me to do what they don’t want to do or can’t do as well as I can. If you don’t know how your conversion occurs, there might not BE one.

SM is for communicating, listening, learning and sharing. Unless you get paid for one of those things, you probably won’t make money directly FROM Social Media. There are lots of people that make money by teaching other people how to use SM or by using the knowledge they already have to become the Media Department for several clients, but that’s the same process I’ve already described.. using SM to demonstrate your proficiencies in SM and attracting people who would rather pay you to do something right that it’ll take them much longer to do as well as doing a much poorer job, making their business look low-budget, thus attracting fewer customers and having their corner-cutting directly affect their bottom line.

Businesses use the search capabilities to find instances of people talking about their brands or products. They make communities or groups or pages so that people can have somewhere to find out about current events or promotions they’re offering. Some of them hire ghost-writers to be their internet presence for them. Any way you look at it, Social Media is a MEANS and not an END. Amassing an audience is only the first part. It’s like booking a theater and advertising your play. If nobody cares about your production, you won’t sell any tickets. If you sell some tickets and your production is garbage, word of mouth will work AGAINST you instead of FOR you. If you add everyone in creation and then you don’t have anything to say that’s useful to them or informs them of why they should use your company for something instead of the myriad others that provide the same services, you’re not going to see much return for the time, energy and money you spent setting up your network.

Social Media is basically a light that you can shine on yourself. It’s where the game STARTS, not where it ends and you get to relax and watch the profits roll in. It’s your opportunity to reach a global audience or a local audience that might be looking for a company that does what you do. Before you shine that light, you want to figure out what your endgame is, what you’re offering and how you’re going to express that to people without shilling and making yourself a pariah.

Your primary opportunity here exists in socialization… getting to know people and letting them know things about you so they can make educated decisions about whether they’d like to include you in their social or business plans. This is why it’s called SOCIAL Media.

If it had been about everyone trading commercials about themselves and amassing a bunch of people you can sell stuff to and make money, then it would have been called BUSINESS Media… and personally, I wouldn’t even be involved.

~ Bill Cammack | @BillCammack

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When a woman leaves you, you may feel heartbroken, depressed, wistful, horny, betrayed, disappointed… :( any number of feelings, consecutively or simultaneously. Here are five tips on how to move on with your life, and learn to love again………

1) Have sex with her sister

hahahahaha Just Kidding! :D

… unless her sister’s HAWT!

This won’t help you feel better about yourself if her sister’s like “eeeh, ok”, because she’s not an upgrade. Depending on how mediocre she is, you may end up feeling EXPONENTIALLY WORSE! :(

Also, this does NOT… repeat… DOES *NOT* work with her best-girlfriend! Do Not Make This Mistake. A lot of women are extremely emotionally volatile & catty. Their friendships with other women turn on a dime… like happened in her relationship to YOU! :D This means that there’s the potential that in the very near future, your ex-girlfriend won’t care AT ALL about you banging her friend, so you basically wasted your time. (Note for non-Americans… “Banging” is a slang term for “having sex”, most likely derived from the sound the woman’s head makes against the headboard)

2) Have sex with her mother

ok, *NOW* I’m kidding! :D

… unless her mother’s RICH!…….. and HAWT!

3) Get a hobby

Take that extra energy that you have, now that you’re not tappin’ that three times a day, and start working out. You want to meet women in the gym anyway, because they’re WYSIWYG. They don’t get to hide their muffin-tops under those Pee-wee Herman maternity dresses.

Besides… You were probably getting flabby anyway, since you knew you were going to get laid, regardless, so working out is a double-win for you.

4) Make tons of money

The best revenge is living well. Now that she’s not with you, buy that yacht and sail past her house every Saturday with your new girlfriends that you picked up at the gym! :D Rev your new Ferrari’s engine outside that diner where she’s working the overnight shift to make ends meet after her regular job on the assembly line at the sock factory.

oh… wait….. Make sure you didn’t have any kids with her before y’all broke up! If you did, skip this tip, because the more money you make, the more you have to give her in alimony and child support, so you’d actually be better off trying to figure out how to get her back instead of buying boats and cars. :D

5) Drink alcohol

Helps you forget your ex ever existed and makes her sister look better, in case you decide to try #1. :D

~Bill

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