Nov 8, 2017
“Organic Facebook is now the office water cooler. Nothing more.”
This episode started out discussing this claim co-host Daniel Newman made about the trends he’s been seeing lately on Facebook.
As Daniel and co-host Brian Fanzo began to discuss the changing landscape of Facebook and all social media channels for that manner the discussion took an interesting turn invoking a wide range of emotions and comments from the live video audience that you can read about below. This episode might be a bit of a change of pace from the traditional SMACtalk discussions but the underlying foundation of this discussion can be translated across every aspect of your business today!
More of Daniel’s Statement here:
It has truly returned to its roots of being purely a place to BS and talk about politics, family, sports and news, but comparatively to the time that many people spend on it, it has almost no business value.
Here is an easy way to tell. If you share something on FB that is closely connected to your work, what kind of engagement do you get? Now, share an article about your kids or politics and see what happens. If I share an article about cloud, semiconductors or IoT, I get almost nothing. If I share a picture of my kids I get a day or two of endorphin rising notifications.
Over the past couple of months
I've spent much less time here, but I've actually become a better
customer to Facebook because instead of using it Organically, when
I share business related things I put paid behind it so the content
reaches a very targeted audience that could potentially consume
what I'm trying to share/sell/spread. Furthermore, I've realized
that the time I spent here and the "Influence" built here has no
correlation to the work I do nor does it for many others. This has
since been further proven as I've never been busier with client
work when I was spending less time being distracted by a few
interesting discussions and a littering of mind numbing self
serving opining and a sprinkle of self-promotional content that
makes me further understand why people don't want to see such
content from me. Also, studies have shown it takes 25 minutes to
return to work following a distraction. As a partner in multiple
businesses, I find this troubling to consider how those constantly
being lured in by these distractions are able to produce at even a
fraction of their potential. This maps to a conversation about the
future of work and compensation that will have to wait for another
day.
Now, having said that, Facebook is a perfectly great place to
have the water cooler talk. It is nice to spend time catching up on
world events and having the chance to debate them and do it in
volume. However, I seriously doubt many people are able to look at
their time spent here critically and come to the conclusion that
their is a good return on their investment of time. Facebook is
great to reach an audience, but really this is a paid vehicle not
an organic one. If you aren't selling MLM, then most client
acquisition won't take place here and you would be better suited to
make your connections on LinkedIn or Twitter or a more specialized
group setting that has more targeted audiences.
And yes, I realize some people will not agree with me. Some may
even lecture me as to why I'm wrong. I'll hear about the many great
relationships that have been built here (and those are important
too). But I would also suggest that odds are some good things would
have happened for those people had they spent the same time on
other networks or at risk of sounding crazy, that time spent
working.
Okay...I could go on and on, but I'll stop here. And I'll come back
to look at some point, but not until I'm done with stuff that makes
the hay.
Next look for a barrage of pics of the kids and dog. Because that
is what people really want to see here
As always we live stream the podcast recording on Facebook Live and this topic had the audience fired up.
You can checkout some of the comments below and watch the full Facebook Live video below.
Jane Stewart · 36:40 I hope everyone is REALLY LISTENING 🔥👈
Julia Bramble · 39:20 Great discussion guys!!
Owen Hemsath · 32:05 This is such an important conversation guys
Nazim Beltran · 39:34 Super happy to have caught this live! Thanks guys!
Carlos Phoenix · 14:42 I am currently working with a major media company thanks in part to LinkedIn.
Vincent Orleck · 16:42 If you're in social media and you're not also integrating DIGITAL media, you're doing it wrong.
Pamela Saunders · 38:31 The times they are a changin'.
Marc Gawith · 12:23 I have fallen in love with Twitter.
Vincent Orleck · 31:48 business influence vs personal influence
Owen Hemsath · 38:11 Priorities?? More like brains 😂
Terry Johnson · 5:29 FB is pay to play
Martin Lepage · 41:35 Great podcast 😉👍
Julia Bramble · 22:40 FB for business growth is always going to be about groups and ads …
Owen Hemsath · 26:31 But I’m not on FB to have fun-I’m on to run ads, promote content, engage in my groups, and grow the business
Jonathan Tripp · 34:41 This is #realtalk on steroids!
Alan Berkson · 34:05 It's always good to take a step back and look where your value is being generated. And be agile. What worked yesterday doesn't always work today.