YOUTILITY

Why Smart Marketing Is About Help, Not Hype

The difference between helping and selling is just two letters. But those two letters are critically important to your company’s success.

You’re not competing for attention only against other, similar products. You’re competing for attention against everything. To win in this hyper-competitive environment, you must ask “How can we help?”

If you sell something, you make a customer today, but if you genuinely help someone, you create a customer for life. This is Youtility.

Includes interviews with dozens of companies practicing Youtility, and provides 6 blueprints for building Youtility in your company.

Available for pre-order soon (get up to 7 exclusive bonuses) at http://YoutilityBook.com
Social Media Marketing 2  |  Add Yours

Clowns, Charlatans, and Social Media Name Calling

There’s a lot of name-calling in social media right now, including Gary Vaynerchuk asserting that “99.5% of social media experts are clowns.” True, there are people out there (including many “name brand” social media consultants) that don’t have a lot of business expertise. This often results in companies getting too enthusiastic about social media per se, and not recognizing that social is a means to an end.

The goal is not to be good at social media, but to be good at business because of social media.

But don’t confuse myopia with thievery. Just because your marketing director or social media advisor can’t connect every dot in terms of how social supports your business objectives doesn’t mean they are without value or are out to deceive you. It just means that there are a variety of sophistication levels in the social media services business, the same way there are levels of sophistication in accounting, law, plumbing, auto repair, psychiatry, plastic surgery, tattoo application, and almost any other service.

Yet, an increasingly large portion of the cognoscenti chooses to spend time demonizing and denigrating the skills and backgrounds of others in the industry.


Play Your Own Game

Maybe it’s just the way I was raised, but I don’t see the value in that approach. Everybody is a teacher in social media, and everybody is a student. And there’s enough cookies in the cookie jar for everyone.Does it irk me when bad advice flows like water sometimes? Sure. But I suggest you play your own game. Let’s worry about providing our clients and companies the best possible outcomes, and don’t fret about whether somebody else’s clients or companies are getting what they paid for.(Video production by my friends at Real Simple Video. Super fast, inexpensive video editing and assistance. Check them out at realsimplevideo.com/jaybaer)

pf button both Clowns, Charlatans, and Social Media Name Calling
About Jay Baer

Jay Baer is a hype-free social media and content strategist & speaker, and author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype. Jay is the founder of http://convinceandconvert.com and host of the Social Pros podcast.

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  • http://www.dangeroustactics.com christiantjr

    What’s interesting is that it’s really only people with very little business skill, who hire consultants with very little business skill. There will always be the blind leading the blind. I love your commentary on this Mr Baer. I believe, however, that Gary Vee should be able to pull off calling people clowns. Surely people get that he’s just kind of spazzy. It’s one of the reasons we love him :-)

  • letstalkandchat

    I just found a great company that builds websites for info products. To keep your costs low, they’ll mentor you on how to create your site, design a marketing funnel (one of the guys works in Hollywood and makes really slick videos), and the other guy programmed Myspace. If you’re looking to have professional web design for your small business and not waste any time or money then check their site out. Check them out: http://www.mikelmurphy.com/easy-info-product-site-system/