The reality for many businesses is that if they gave up Social Media for lent it wouldn’t make a single difference to their business

Not a single difference

The truth is a lot of business owners probably spent more time thinking about the answer to that question, than the questions they should have asked at the start of their campaign

Questions like

• Why are we using social media?
• What are we hoping to achieve by it?
• What does Social Media Success look like?
• Which channels are most relevant for our business?
• How are we going to manage it on a daily basis?
• How are we going to measure it?

For businesses who haven’t asked those questions before jumping on social media – it’s highly unlikely that 40 days off social media will make a difference to their business

Let’s look at the reality

• “Fewer than 30% of SME’s have an effective online presence” Google
• “Only 54 percent of small business owners report they are very confident in their business’ online presence” Web.com
• “38% of UK Small Businesses Lack Basic Digital Skills” Lloyds Bank UK Business Digital Skills Index
• “All business failures are marketing failures” Martin Glenn Pepsico / United Biscuits

So what can you do

CARRY ON AS NORMAL
Risk: If you change nothing, nothing will change.

This is a huge problem with social media. Businesses who admit that social media doesn’t work for them, but aren’t prepared to change their approach to social media

The flipside on that quote above is “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

So if social medial isn’t working for you – carrying on as normal is huge risk

Reward: Change makes people feel uneasy and carrying on the same as before is easy. That is literally the only reward from carrying on before – in the short term you will feel better because you don’t need to make any huge changes to the effort you put in to social media and you don’t need to challenge yourself.

But never forget – Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end

GIVE UP SOCIAL MEDIA FOR LENT
Risk: The biggest risk about giving up Social Media for lent is people will forget about you. Goldfish have an attention span of 9 seconds. Humans have an attention span of 8 seconds.

If you’re not at the top of people’s feed. You’re not at the tip of people’s tongue

The other big risk of course is you may have been doing everything right on social, but have just lacked the patience to start bringing in results. Social Media is not an instant fix and it takes time to become that business winning  machine

Reward: You get back all that time you were wasting by spending 30 mins – hour a day on unproductive marketing activities. All the stats above show that a lot of businesses simply don’t have an effective online presence.

And we’ve worked with businesses in our Social Media training sessions who have spent 12 months to 2/3 years dabbling with social media and not getting results. If you’re dabbling, you’re not spending your time productively

GET SOCIAL MEDIA TRAINING
Risk: There’s really only 2 risks from Social Media Training

1. You get training from someone who doesn’t truly understand Social Media. There’s a lot of charlatans, fake gurus and scam artists in the “Social Media Industry”. Check testimonials out in their dozens from anyone who offers social media training – you can check out ours on LinkedIn here https://www.linkedin.com/in/amccann/ or freeindex here http://www.freeindex.co.uk/profile(altrincham-hq)_369566.htm

2. The 2nd risk is you don’t follow up on the advice given in the Social Media Training. Social Media is about return on effort – are you prepared to put in the effort?
Reward: Success does not come without training. It’s as simple as that.

The rewards from Social Media Training are limitless. When you know the nuances of each platform and have a strategy of how to make social media work for your business you can approach social media with real intent.

Make each minute work for you on social media and start driving social media to generate real business results.

Social Media Training is also a low cost options with courses costing less than a tiny advert in your local newspaper.

It’s the gift that keeps giving

OUTSOURCE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA
Risk: You’re letting go of your baby. The business is yours and you can often feel like you’re the only one that can represent it’s voice.

That’s true to a certain extent and if you have the time to manage your social media – about 4 hours a week – i’d recommend the social media training

If you simply don’t have the time, the inclination and haven’t been doing social media, outsourcing can be a great option
Reward: Cash in tills is the huge rewards when outsourced social media management works. Often when we work with businesses they are able to reduce their traditional marketing spend and actually increase their customer base and profit levels as a results of social.

As well as cash in tills you get time to spend working on your business and improving everything from customer service, training and all the aspects of business you have to take time off

And it also gets back that much needed family time where you don’t constantly have to look at your phone in the middle of a romantic meal or some family time with the kids

SO WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH SOCIAL MEDIA FOR LENT?
Chat to about Social Media Marketing for YOUR business so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your business

We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting to you

Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services

Or

Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Alex

Alex McCann is owner of Altrincham HQ – a social media management and training company based in Altrincham, Cheshire that has worked with 100s of local business developing their social media strategy. Alex has 400+ LinkedIn testimonials and is ranked number 1 for Social Media Marketing in the UK via independent customer reviews on Freeindex.