I’ve been wanting for some time to discuss a phenomena which I see time and time again in business owners and managers throughout the business world: an aversion towards using many of the modern online marketing techniques that are available, time and time again I hear “you’ll never get me on Facebook!”, Twitter: why would anyone want to know what I had for breakfast?” or “I’ll never blog, I wouldn’t know what to write!” or even once “but what’s the point of being at the top of Google?” (!!!).

Whenever I’ve heard anyone say anything like this Ive always tried to explore these attitudes and beliefs, so as to understand why people have these beliefs and potentially open their eyes to the opportunities out there, and I’ve found that the majority of the time they are based not on a solid base of information but instead on a lack of knowledge and understanding; which for one reason or another (fear of the unknown perhaps?) leads almost to a determination to ignore the opportunities available and not to do anything!

Now don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not saying that you have to blog, tweet, optimise, facebook, advertise on Google, connect on linkedin, send out marketing email etc; I am a firm believer that you should only do what is appropriate for yourself, your business and your target Market, however the arguments for using many of the online marketing techniques out there are becoming more and more persuasive, and to bury your head in the sand saying “I won’t” so often leads to missed opportunities. A recent example is a contact who initially refused to use Social Media (“I’m a businessman, why would I want to use that thing?!”). When I showed him how easy it was to install Linkedin and Facebook sharing buttons on his website news feed, so that site visitors could share the content he was producing with their contacts, he was amazed and remarked he had no idea it could be done! A week later and his latest news article had been shared over 40 times and had lead to several new leads. He told me yesterday that he now regrets not investing more time on his social strategy and he’s asked me to put a full strategy plan together to ensure he doesn’t miss out again in the future

Im not a big fan of overly promoting my business in this blog, however tThis is one of the key benefits that we at The Web Marketeers bring to our clients; we can objectively see the opportunities that exist in online marketing for businesses both big and small, and we can advise on what would be most appropriate for them and their target market without, quite often wrong, preconceptions and well meaning but ultimately inappropriate advice from friends and family.

If you’d like us to audit your online marketing activity and show you the new opportunities that may exist for your business, please drop me an email at edward@thewebmarketeers.co.uk.