Top Five Ways to Respond to: "I Don't Have Time For Social Media"

It’s still happening, I am sitting in front of a prospect or even a current client and I hear that statement: “I don’t have time for social media.”  

I have struggled with the answer to that question for some time.  I have struggled with whether or not I should even have that conversation.  To better arm myself, I spent some time researching – talking to the experts; searching online and reading a great deal on the topic on Twitter and other locations in the hopes of finding something – something enlightening – some revelation that will speak to those nay-sayers and move them to understanding.

The following list is not by any stretch exhaustive – but it does contain those nuggets that I have found most useful:

1.    Is there money and time being spent on marketing?  
Well, clearly the answer is ‘Yes’ – we hope anyway.  Would you consider a marketing strategy without lead generation, a web site, sales collateral?  Social media is just another tool, an inexpensive one, to add to the arsenal.  Help your client out by showing them how their brand is faring online via Google searches.

2.    Where are you customers spending time?
For some, social media translates to FaceBook or Twitter and that may NOT be where their customers are congregating.  There are many industry-specific or interest-specific social media outlets that while less known may be more relevant and important.  Take the time to check-in and see what is important to these individuals – what’s top of mind – you can prove the value of this medium fairly quickly when your client can get candid, unsolicited data on what their customers are worried about or moved by or looking for.

3.    Do you keep track of what your competitors are doing?  
If the answer is yes, then the ease and access of social media should be an easy sell.  Figure out where your customers lurk and that should lead you to your competitors – the one’s you should worry about anyway. Google search the competitors; compare their rankings with yours.  If they are faring better in the rankings, look a little closer – do they Twitter, is there a company blog – maybe multiple, are they participating in conversations with their customers….maybe even with yours?

4.    Do you think WOM (word of mouth) is powerful?
Social media is the Mecca of third party credibility.  I’ve written about the Summit Credibility Pyramid before but it’s worth mentioning again here as a hierarchy of how we are influenced in decision making.  We trust our own experience first, secondly – and here is where social media plays a big role – we trust people that are like us, thirdly we listen to the media, pundits and analyst and last on the list of ‘credible’ sources is the vendor.  Social media is a prime breeding ground for individuals to let each other know what is worth their time and allocation of the money resource.  No one should miss out on that opportunity.

5.    Don’t you have FMS (fear of missing something)?
OK, so not really a wise question to ask – at least not in that tone.  And, while we all grew up hearing phrases such as “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?”  In this case, it is important to not overlook the statistics supporting the increased usage of social media - usage has increased by 82% in the last year alone - hardly statistics that should be ignored.  Disregarding the proliferation of social media is somewhat akin to saying you didn’t have time to learn how to dial the telephone back in the early nineteen hundreds.

As I said above, by no means is this list exhaustive – I would love to hear how you respond to the uncomfortable sounds of  - “I Don’t Have Time For Social Media”.  Drop me a line and let me know.

Jacqueline ‘Jack’ Perez is Founder and Market Builder for Summit Strategy Partners, LLC, a Chapel Hill-based boutique strategic marketing and communications firm.  Jack helps companies align their marketing strategy to corporate objectives and uncover their Disruptive ConversationTM.  She regularly publishes MarketingSmack – a weekly humorous blog on the Human Experience.
 

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