I spent this weekend at Tracey’s Mum and Dad’s house in Wiltshire.

A charming little country village.

I was up at 5am each day and Tracey’s dad Bob joined me around 6:30am.

I’d then spend about 2 hours thinking while pretending to listen as he spouted unending gossip, and anger towards various member of the village.

Once that was done he moved straight onto ‘it wasn’t like this in my day’.

‘It’s all a scam’.

‘It’s all a racket’.

‘There’s nothing free’.

‘This world is getting too bloody complicated’.

I actually kinda relish these bizarre and yet strangely enlightening rants from Bob. His generation have a HUGE amount of money waiting to be spent with me so I appreciate a little insight into how he feels.

Most of what he said was of course complete ‘ignorant’ B.S. But some of it did get me thinking.

Particularly when he started going on about Facebook and how annoyed he gets when Sarah and Tracey (Tracey is my fiancee and Sarah is here sister) sit on Facebook giggling away to themselves for hours.

I’m on his side there.

Just looking at Facebook makes me sweat with fear of addiction and endless hours wasted catching up with out-dated old mates who I got rid of in the first place because they in some way detracted from my life.

Social media like Facebook, Twitter. MySpace etc is here.

But is it all it’s cracked up to be?

And there’s always an army of rampant, ‘blinkered’ ’sheep’ hunting after the next fad that gives easy success and a fast buck.

Social media and web 2.0 has created a wonderful flock of these ‘brain washed’, impossible to distinguish, ‘cloned’ wollies. All touting social media as not only the fastest and easiest way to gain new customers but also FREE!

There can be some business benefits from social media.

BUT, in most cases for solo-entrepreneurs, small business there are MUCH better places to spend time.

Here’s the BIGGEST problem.

The idea that you can acquire clients for FREE or little has been around since the beginning of time.

And this is the main attraction with social media.

Trouble is, the FREE customers are usually the worst PLUS, they will NOT be free forever, PLUS, you cannot sidestep competition, PLUS you CANNOT make any rational, sensible decisions on how to GROW your business at any pace you desire.

It’s akin to BRAND ADVERTISING - with a TIME expense rather than a monetary one. EXCEPT, anyone can enter the game and EVERYONE is playing the same field…

Let me give you an example.

Say you want to add an additional 50 customers to your business this month.

Given the law of averages with not much testing you can do that easily as LONG as you can directly attribute your new customers to some kind of action you took.

Say you run an ad in a newspaper or magazine and then follow up with a sales process and create 10 new customers from that one mag. You know the circulation of the mag so all you need to do is test another bunch of mags with a similar readership and a total reader base of over 5 times the initial test.

Simple, predictable and pretty easy WHEN you know how to write good copy (and if you’re using ads with pretty pictures, your log and a slogan FORGET IT - you need help! Grab a free trial to my Inner Circle and get this bit sorted - CLICK HERE).

But with social media like Facebook and Twitter what do you do?

Go looking for 1,000 new friends?

Sit on forums for hours?

Send out a gazillion tweets on Twitter?

There’s simply no clear, measurable correlation between the actions you take and the result.

It’s a little bit like the OLD MLM and pyramid idea. Get 2 people to get 2 to get 2 and you’ll rule the world in a jiffy. Same kinda principle. And I’m afraid FUNDAMENALLY flawed.

On top of that there is NO barrier to entry (anyone can do what you do, see what you do and copy it) and it’s more than a little difficult to create any kind of competitive advantage UNLESS you are either a ‘celebrity’ in your field already (and if not then you need to become one and that means doing different things).

However - I am NOT saying social media is useless. It isn’t. For some applications it is brilliant. And it’s power is undeniable for some things. But for any business owner or entrepreneur SERIOUS about making big leaps in profits then their are MUCH better places to spend your time.

And there’s one more dynamic to consider.

Because so much of this stuff is apparently free (and it isn’t if you place any kind of value on your time) it means there is much less competition in traditional media and many fewer people with the skills to utilise it effectively.

That IS a BIG opportunity…

Food for thought…

Henry.

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