Not bragging…but I’ve been saying good-bye… well actually firing clients social media marketing lately.

Some people are buying into the idea that you MUST participate in this recession thingy.

Personally I’m not. It’s not that I don’t think we are experiencing weird economic times…we are. I just have been blessed with paying clients…too many in fact. Well to be more exact, too many that are too far away.

I have been lusting after one thing — local and regional clients. How nice would it be to not have to do skype calls and white board presentations in the middle of MY night? How great would it be to meet a client for lunch…YES actually meet in person… and develop more of a long lasting relationship. You know the kind…where you invite them over to your house for Super Bowl parties, or you bring them to Chamber of Commerce functions or Meetup meetings just to get them out of the office or store? Real world “stuff”… the kind of ”stuff” that makes a CONNECTION.

“But waaaaiiit,” you say, ”I thought this social media stuff was the end all, be all for business?”

Nope.

You take social media for what it should be: blended into your marketing efforts. You don’t stop advertising or doing traditional marketing and replace it with social media… not unless you’ve got lots of money and resources to throw at it. Let me give you the analogy I give my clients…

It’s alot like the card game of poker. You don’t win with just ONE card in poker; I don’t care how good that card it. It’s not how it’s played (unless you’re playing one card poker: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ggordon/poker/.)  Instead, you win with a number of cards that work together. Synergy.

The unfortunate rub in this is most advertising is bad. Clients forget the rule of advertising:

It’s what you say times how many times you say it times the quality of the people you say it to.

What you say is the ad. Most advertisers have no budget — or for that part,any idea how to test their advertising. Most just “wing it.” And they usually experience FAIL ad results.

How many times you say it if the repetition factor. But a bad ad repeaqted over and over  still doesnt get you results, or the results you desire. 

Which leads us to the last part of our equation: the quality of people you say it to. If the target audience or demographic of the viewer/reader/surfer is not YOUR target audience, then you FAIL again. Fourteen year old skateboarders do not buy Lexus’ cars. It wouldnt matter how many times you repeat that message, even a good message to them, it still is a FAIL with the audience.

What’s this have to do with social media marketing? Many clients do the same FAIL habits with social media as they do traditional advertising. Get the first one right and repeat it on the second one. Clients from all around the world sometimes need the same hand-holding to change marketing habits as so the local and regional clients do. In fact, I’ll venture to say it’s harder with a client around the other side of the world. Sometimes being able to sit down with the client, shake their hand, look ‘em in the eye and tell it to them straight is the best way. It’s that CONNECTION I talked about.

I want more local and regional clients. I want to make a difference in MY community, MY state, MY country.

What does this have to do with social media? For me it’s the answer to “what’s my responsibility to help in these strange economic times?” For me it’s this. How can I help, who can I help? What can I do that’ll make a real world difference?

I told my plans to a good friend of mine. He blurts out, OK… but is there a market locally and regionally?” Well I am situated ideally between about 10-12 million people within a 2-3 hour drive. So I’m not too concerned about that. But even locally, I searched LinkedIn.com and found:
 28,083 results within 25 mile radius
64,779 results within 50 mile radius
985,204 results within 100 mile radius

I was slow out of the gate to use LinkedIn.com due to my use of Twitter and various other social media and social networking sites. But I have fallen in love with what LinkedIn.com offers a small business person like me. So if I was a betting man, I’d say the odds are in my favor that I’ll replace that revenue quickly.

My point is: opportunities are all around. Most business people drive by more business on a daily basis that they could adequately handle. You must get rid of what you don’t want (like the “driftwood” in your life and business) to make room for what you truly desire and want. So my question to you is: do you have any clients you SHOULD fire?

G. Wayne Clayton is the founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Integerol LLC  along with SocialMarketingExpert.org.  He’s a former newspaper publisher and investigative journalist. He has been seen seen and heard on CNN, Fox News Talk radio, quoted in The Toronto Star and is a Guest Blogger on FastCompany.com.