Full Written Transcript of The Episode

Matt Tompkins: When you ask business owners why they’re on social media, the most common answer that you’ll get is something like, Dude, everyone’s on social media. I can almost hear my Grandma Nola’s voice echoing loudly in response because everyone else is doing it is a dumb reason to do anything. Grandma Nola was a wise woman. Grandma Nola used to also tell me that anything worthwhile is worth questioning.

So I think it’s very fair to ask if our business should be on every social media channel and considering how much time, personnel and money that we throw at a multi-channel social media presence. I also think it’s fair to ask how much money has this approach actually made your business? What’s the return on this investment? Has all of this busy work moved your business forward, or is it just that busy work?

In this episode, let’s stop trying to be everything everywhere all at once and see if we can answer some very basic questions. Starting with Should your business be on every social media channel?Hello and welcome back to Midwest Mindset, the.

Matt Tompkins: Podcast that gives you the small business owner, the big agency Secrets to Marketing. I’m Matt Tompkins of two Brothers Creative, where we believe every business deserves affordable and effective marketing. 51% of all businesses will be closed after five years.

Over half of all businesses will fail within their first five years. Now, I don’t know this as a fact, but I think it’s pretty safe for me to assume that there is no entrepreneur, no business owner out there who just had to close their doors. Their business is done and said, If only we had spent more time on TikTok, our business would still be open and thriving today. Now I am in no way anti social media.

Quite the opposite. I think it’s in a very effective tool for small businesses to use, but that’s it. It’s a tool for many businesses. Their entire marketing strategy is just social media. We’ll just post on social media. It’s free. It seems easy.

Everybody’s doing it. Social media is not a strategy. Social media is a tactic. It is a tool that we use within our marketing strategy. Social media is not this magical marketing cure all for your business. There are many benefits to using social media effectively. You can get your message out. You can communicate and connect with your customers, your prospects directly. One on one. You can be seen.

You can establish your authority, establish credibility, you know legitimacy. You can be discovered by new people, especially the way that the algorithms work for things like reels on Facebook and Instagram, TikTok YouTube shorts, where they’re putting you and your reels, your your vertical video shorts in front of strangers, front of people who aren’t familiar with you or your business.

Matt Tompkins: That’s a huge opportunity can build your brand. But the risks and the negative side effects of a multi-channel social media approach are very real. And I don’t think we talk about those enough. The first one being it is a major time suck.

Yes, social media is a major time suck. It takes a major time commitment. Just think about individually how much time each of us spends on social media every day. Now I found studies that range on the low end 2.5 hours per day to the high end, six hours per day on social media. The average American spends 2.5 to 6 hours per day on social media, on our phones. And if you don’t believe me, open up your screen time report. I get that notification every Sunday, and it’s kind of a shocker. But social media is designed to be addictive. It’s designed to suck us in and we lose track of time.

So that’s how much time we’re each individually spending on social media. But that gets multiplied if you are a small business owner, because we’re not just on one social media platform. We’re not just on social media for our own entertainment, just, you know, the mind numbing scrolling on and on and on. The endless scroll, as they call it.

Matt Tompkins: Now we have to maintain all these channels because all these channels now are direct representations of our business. In addition to our website, they are in essence this, in essence, this digital storefront. So now we’re not just on Facebook, we’re on Instagram, we’re on TikTok, we’re on YouTube, we’re on LinkedIn, we’re on Twitter. I mean, that’s six right there.

So instead of focusing on just one platform. Where we know our ideal customer is with a message that is specific and targeted to reach and connect with them. Now we’re dividing up our time by six, so we can’t do any channel really that well. And our message is very vague because we don’t know if our ideal customer is even in on all these channels.

We don’t know why we’re doing it. We’re just doing it because we see everybody else doing it and we think. That we need to to. This is a major time suck and that means it is costing you money. We we like to look at social media as this thing that is free. It’s very easy to use or it seems easy to use and everybody’s on it. It is not free. It is not easy to use and we may see everybody else on it. But trust me, they’re all going through the same frustrations.

They’re all scratching their head just like you and I wondering why? What am I doing? Is this even working? Is this even worth it? Just think about how much value you place on your time as a business owner.

Matt Tompkins: We have a very limited amount of time. You can always make more money. You can’t get more time. We can’t add more time to the day. And as entrepreneurs, we need that time.

So you have to ask this very real question Is your time best spent divided up over six different social media channels doing a mediocre job at best because you’ve divided it up versus dialing in your processes and procedures, working on your invoicing or, heaven forbid, you know, picking up the phone and doing some cold call prospecting, that is still perhaps the number one way to increase your sales. Old school. And I don’t think the answer is yes.

Now, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for social media. It means that if we’re going to do social media, we have to have a very specific, targeted strategy that it is a part of. To put this in perspective, I want to bring up the story of Vilfredo Pareto. Now, he is the guy. He’s the Italian economist who discovered what is now known as the 8020 rule.

Now, the 80 over 20 rule. What he found the it was also known as the Pareto Principle in Italy. What he found was that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The 80 over 20 rule he found could basically be applied to anything. I mean, give or take a percentage or two.

Matt Tompkins: 80% of a company’s profits come from 20% of its customers, 80% of road accidents, traffic accidents caused by 20% of drivers, 80% of software usage is by 20% of users. 80% of a company’s complaints come from 20% of its customers. 80% of wealth is owned by 20% of people. I could go on and on and on. What’s cool or perhaps nerdy, if you want to look at it that way, I admit it’s a little nerdy is to apply the 80 over 20 rule to the 80 over 20 rule and then you get the 64 over four rule.

Now, trust me, I’m horrible at math. All that means is that 4% of your efforts result in 96% of the outcome. 4% of your efforts Is a small business owner equal 96% of your company’s revenue? 4%. In other words, 96% of the time is just a complete waste of time. 96% of the things that we’re doing as business owners is not moving our business forward.

It’s not cultivating relationships with clients and bringing in new prospects and dialing in those things that systematize our business. Only 4% is. So now when we take a step back and we consider the amount of time that we’re giving up to social media and then dividing up to get mediocre results among all these different channels. That time has a much higher value. I mean, just imagine if 4% right now of your time is getting you 96% of the results for your business.

Matt Tompkins: Imagine what an extra 1% could do. Just 1% difference. And that can happen if you took maybe one hour of those 2.5 hours per day that were. I almost said wasted but spending on social media and instead dedicated it to these things. The boring shit as our our friend and guest Jeremy Aspen said the main reason why businesses go out of business the boring shit. Dedicate one hour a day to learning QuickBooks. One hour a day to your processes and procedures.

One hour a day to, you know, cold calling, cold emailing, prospecting. New leads. That’s how you move your business forward. So we have to take a real honest look at the amount of time that social media is consuming and is it worth the results? The other thing we have to ask is, is it working? Do we even have a way to measure whether or not it’s getting results? Our efforts on social media.

Are we actually increasing revenue? Do we actually have new sales, new leads, Qualified leads? We can’t just go by. We got a bunch of hearts, views and likes. Because what does that mean? I mean, yes, I understand it releases dopamine in our brain.

It’s part of what makes social media like a slot machine intentionally designed to be very addicting because it rewards our pleasure center in our brain. But we have to ask, is this actually getting us results for our business? The results we need to stay in business?

The other thing we have to consider is how people use social media and ask Is social media an ideal selling environment? Do people want to see ads on social media? Now, trust me, you’re talking to the guy here who has had I have fallen for I don’t know how many targeted Facebook ads.

Matt Tompkins: I have bought so many things from China because it’s I know it’s like my Achilles heel. I see Marvel stuff, a Captain America shield, which still is not arrived, by the way.

That was a nice $73 waste of money. Yes, they can be very effective. I am proof of that. Targeted ads can work very well for your business, but we have to understand how people are consuming content. Reels, posts, videos, and what they really want. Think of it this way. You’re at a party.

All right. Social media is kind of like a party. And, you know, people on social media, they’re just scrolling through. They just want to be distracted for a few seconds. Just like at a party, you’re moving from group to group. You know, you’re mingling, you’re having fun.

You get bored with Tom’s story about, you know, how he was a almost became a Boy Scout eagle. And then then his conversation really takes a turn and gets weird. So you exit pretty quickly. You move on to the next group, the next conversation, the next story. You’re just having fun. And then you have the guy who is selling Amway who comes up and says, hey, you know, I really got to tell you about this deal.

Matt Tompkins: I mean, is that the right moment to be pitching? The long line of products and services that Amway has. And I know picking on Amway here actually sold Amway.

So I guess I can’t technically pick on them because I still have a closet full of their stuff from when I was in high school, young and vulnerable and impressionable. But I digress. No, it’s not the best selling environment. People are there to have fun. They’re not there to buy, you know, your service or your your your product. Social media is very similar.

You know, people don’t want to be bombarded by your message, by your ad. So use it wisely. Use it Very smart. Be hyper targeted in how you use it and understand how it actually works and what people actually want. Because you can easily turn off new customers if you are that guy selling Amway or whatever it is at the wrong place. Doesn’t matter if it’s Amway or not. People are going to be turned off. They can be turned off very easily.

So is it the ideal selling environment for your business? And you’re noticing a theme here because everything is about your business, because every business is different. You know, it may be Instagram may be the ideal selling environment for your business, for your service or product. You know, it may be that Instagram or Facebook is the ideal platform for you because your ideal customer is on that platform and you’re on that platform all the time, so it makes sense for your business.

Matt Tompkins: That leads into this next big misstep that I see a lot, and that is small business owners. We see what the big companies are doing and we see what all our competitors and all of our all of our fellow business owners in our market are doing.

And we do the same because we see them doing it and we think, well, if they’re doing it, then I need to be doing it too. It’s like keeping up with the Joneses. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is trying to do what big companies do. Stop doing what big companies are doing unless you have a big company yourself. Stop doing what that big company is doing.

Unless you’re Coca-Cola and you have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on your marketing to do this very broad, very, you know, just kind of it’s this spray and pray approach where we’re just going to try to appeal to everybody, be very safe. We’re not going to be specific because you know what? We have hundreds of millions of dollars so we can bombard people with these messages.

We can hire a Kardashian, We can do whatever it is that might move the needle for Coca-Cola. But guess what? We’re not Coca-Cola. We have a very limited, if any, marketing budget at all and we have to use it very wisely.

Matt Tompkins: So trying to emulate what big companies are doing, it’s like they’re not just playing a different game, they’re playing a different sport. They’re playing baseball. We’re over here playing soccer and we’re trying to compare and do what they’re doing. Matt Why did you bring a baseball bat? This is soccer. Does it make any sense?

You just wasted all your money on that nice baseball bat and you don’t have any soccer shoes? So stop doing what other businesses, big businesses and companies are doing. Also, stop doing things because your competitors are doing. Here is an honest truth. All right. So results on social media are kind of like a bench press. Nobody knows or cares about your bench press except for you. You don’t know how effective. Social media is for that business that you’re jealous of.

You don’t know if because Susie at her bakery got 10,000 views, that means that she’s increased profits by ten x. You don’t know if it’s had any impact. She could be going out of business, for all you know, just like you don’t know or care what Bob can bench press.

We get tied into this. It’s very ego driven where we think everybody wants to know that I’m successful. So I’m going to post videos and I’m going to put on this show Puff out my chest. I think at the gym they even have a term for it.

Matt Tompkins: It’s called peacocking. It’s just showing off. You’re strutting your stuff, you’re showing off your fancy feathers. None of that, though, is moving your business forward. None of that, though, is helping you market your business to increase profits, sales and revenue. Stop doing what you see big companies doing. Stop doing what you see your competitors doing and start doing what you and your business need to be doing.

Which leads me into how I want to wrap up this episode because I’ve been pointing out a lot of things you shouldn’t do, a lot of mistakes and missteps that we want to avoid as small business owners. And if you’re wondering, Matt, when are you going to get to what we actually should do? Well, that’s right here. That’s what I’m getting to now.

How should we use social media? Well, instead of a multichannel approach where you start on 5 or 6 different channels, start with just one channel. How do you choose that channel? Well, choose the channel based off of two things.

There are two criteria you want to base this on. One is where your ideal customer actually spends time. So if your ideal customer is on Facebook predominantly or on on LinkedIn or Instagram, choose the platform they’re actually on, it’s going to make it a lot easier for you to reach them with your message. And the second piece of criteria here is choose a platform that you actually spend time on, because odds are, as a small business owner, you’re going to be doing a lot of this work yourself.

Matt Tompkins: And if let’s say you hate Twitter, you don’t like Elon Musk and you lost your blue check mark of certification, validation, whatever it’s called, and you’re angry and you hate Twitter, it’s going to make it much more likely for you to lose sight of Twitter and not give it the time and attention that it needs, which is missed opportunity. And, you risk having that dead channel for your business just sitting there.

So pick a channel that your ideal customer is actually on and pick a channel that you are actually on. Number two, Market message media. We talked about these, the basic three key ingredients to any successful marketing campaign and that is know your target market, know your message, have it dialed in and specific and then choose the right media.

And this applies across the board, but especially so with social media. Social media, as I said early on, it is not a strategy. It’s just, well, it has media in the name. It’s just a form of media, a way for you to get your message to your ideal customer.

Number three, create a content marketing schedule or a content marketing planner. And this is going to prevent that time suck because the last thing that you want to do, your last thing you want to do is just open up an app and think, What am I going to do today? And then just because what’ll happen is what happens to all of us.

Matt Tompkins: You, we’ve all done this. You open up TikTok and next thing you know, you look at the clock and four hours have passed by and you’re like, did I just enter a time warp? What just happened? So don’t do that. Instead, create a planner, a schedule every single day for one hour. I’m going to dedicate it to that one social media channel.

And that’s going to give you a lot of intent, a lot of focus. It’s going to prevent that time suckage from happening. It’s going to give you a plan. What is your message for this month? Is there a term, a phrase, a thing that you want to own for this year? You know, in 2024, we’re going to own the phrase meatball because, you know, we’re an Italian restaurant, meatball, meatball.

So we can figure out a plan for the entire year, divide that up into quarters, into months, into weeks, and all of a sudden you’re going to have something that resembles an actual strategy.

One of the thing that’s really important to keep in mind with social media is that we don’t own social media. We don’t own the content that we’ve created and posted on social media. We have given it away to these social media platforms for free, and then they are leasing it back to us and they are setting the terms. So I just spent thousands of dollars on this video promoting my business.

Matt Tompkins: I uploaded it to Facebook and then Facebook now owns it. I just given it to them for free and they set the terms. They say, Well, if you want anybody to actually see this video now, you got to pay us or we’re going to suppress it. And that’s how that’s their business model.

So it’s just important to keep in mind that you always want to point people back to something you own, i.e. your website, your mailing list. Last two things here that I think are super important real quick. One is to always follow the data points that matter. It’s easy to it’s easy with social media to manipulate the analytics, to show good or bad or whatever we want. It really is.

So you need to focus on the analytics. The data points that truly matter for moving your business forward. The three I would start with are pretty simple and straight forward. One is leads, qualified leads, and then sales. Sales pretty obvious. That’s closed deals. That’s new revenue moving your business forward. Right. But if you’re going to try and troubleshoot, if you’re doing a good job with your marketing or the marketing agency that you’ve hired, leads and qualified leads are really they’re great tools for really fine tuning your marketing.

So leads, qualified leads and then sales. And the last thing I really want to impress upon you here today is to always question why you’re doing something.

Matt Tompkins: Don’t just do it because your competitors are doing it, or because you see Pepsi-Cola doing it, or the big companies in your industry doing it. You really need to put in the time and do your homework, do the research, figure out where your ideal customer is.

Those those three basic ingredients to a successful marketing campaign. Trust me, they are fundamental and universal. Know who your target market is. Know what your message is to reach them and your form of media to reach them. And while social media is yes, a form of media, I mean, it has it in the name. It is not a strategy. And having a marketing strategy is the difference between your business succeeding and failing. Thanks once again for joining us here on Midwest Mindset.

And if you want to know if your marketing is working, if you would like to measure your marketing, we have a free measure, my marketing tool, the link is in the show notes. You just click on the link, take advantage. It is free. There are no strings attached and we’ll walk you through the process to find out if your marketing is working, whether it’s you doing it yourself.

Where most of us business owners start out, or if you’ve hired an agency and you just don’t know, you know, maybe you even have a hunch that you’re being taken advantage of. Well, we can find out. Measure my marketing.

The link is in the show notes, and we’ll see you on the next episode.