Why social media popularity doesn’t equal business profitability

Visibility is fabulous if it leads to something useful for your business. For example, if you can get a solid Return on Investment (ROI) on your time, energy and money, then it is worth it to invest in making your business highly visible to others.

However, all the visibility in the world doesn’t matter if no one is buying what you’re selling. At its core, marketing is simply about connecting. What’s more, people can’t buy from you if they don’t know you have something on offer. Many people cannot buy from service-based businesses if they don’t have a conversation with you first. Otherwise, they don't know about your offers.

Offers and conversations

How well do you think you’re doing with sharing your offers and having conversations with others? Think about when, where and how often you actually tell people about your offers - write it down. Are you surprised? Is it more or less than you thought it would be?

Now, how many conversations have you had with potential clients this week? This month? Sharing your offers with people and having conversations about them is where you should spend your precious marketing time and energy.

Overall, you will want to keep track of these numbers if you want to grow.

What about social media?

If you’ve been giving all your attention to the number of social media followers you have, you also need to give some love to your sales numbers. This isn’t a call to abandon social media and email marketing, as social media is a good place to meet people and start conversations.

Just make sure you’re thinking about taking the next step as well. Furthermore, sending relevant and helpful email messages to people who have signed up for your updates is a great way to build relationships.

And if you’re not using Google Analytics on your website, it’s time to give it a try. It’s a free and remarkable resource which tells you where your traffic is coming from. Specifically, you can see which of your social media channels is sending you the most traffic.

Profitability means sustainability

Don’t forget the main reason you’re doing all of this. In order to continue to do your brilliant work with clients, you need to make money. The more money you make, the more people you can help. On the other hand, if you don’t make a profit, you can’t stay in business.

I’m absolutely not talking about being pushy or pressuring people into buying from you. I’m proposing the exact opposite. I would instead encourage you to focus on discovering the truth of your business’ situation.

One way to do this is to make your intention clear to the potential client to see if there is a fit or not with your company. If your intention is to find the truth, to be mindful of what the person you are connecting with needs, then you can have a positive and fun experience. Conversely, if your intention is to make a sale before you find out if it’s a fit or not, then it will feel stressful and uncomfortable.

Here are two examples of how you can shift your intentions with marketing:

Situation	Stressful intention	Peaceful intention
Need clients	I want them to buy.	I want to find out what the right thing is for them.
Going to a networking event	I have to meet people and tell them what I do.	I want to learn from people and help where I can.

Start growing your business

To summarise, be proactive and make a plan to share your offers frequently and consistently. The same goes for having conversations with potential clients. For instance, you can set a goal to have one to three conversations per week. Finally, the more you pay attention to the profitability of your business, the bigger the difference you can make in the long term.

What are your most important business metrics? Share your thoughts in the comments below!