I awoke this morning thinking about a discussion I had Friday morning with an agency owner that had proposed us to their client as the best provider, based on not only cost but experience and results.  Flash back to Friday morning, where on a call with the agency owner, I was told that the client was second – guessing his recommendation because our own Facebook page only had just over 100 Likes. Apparently they stopped their investigation there. Perhaps they didn’t see the link in my email signature inviting them to view my personal LinkedIn profile, didn’t hear my suggestion at our face-to-face meeting that they review my personal recommendations on LinkedIn where I have more than 500 personal connections and 32 personal recommendations. Inbound emails from and banners on my LinkedIn profile page suggest that I’m a social media All-star!

I guess I should explain why our Facebook page may seem lacking. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is the big boy in social media. They have the most reach. Facebook has also essentially shut of the exposure that a business can get from their page(s). About two years ago they stopped the natural (read FREE) flow of page posts from all business pages such that no matter how many likes your page had virtually no one would witness the great fresh and relevant stories your company may be posting at an ever rapid speed. Why, you may ask, did they do this? Well it has something to do with what every publicly traded company seeks, the almighty dollar. You see without the natural flow of page views previously gained for FREE, from here forward businesses must pay to have their information shown: even to all of those FAKE likes their inexperienced, money hungry, freshly launched Social Media firm had grabbed for them. Please read that as ADVERTISE.

Personally I’ve been an interested spectator in all things internet since the early days. I’ve watched them come and watched them go. I witnessed the birth and stellar rise of Facebook, and the failure of the ever present Google to catch-up and compete with them on social fronts. Our firm was founded as in internet Marketing firm before social media existed as we know it today. Early sites like Six Degrees, and even My Space years later, weren’t necessarily seen as the place that every company needed to be. It wasn’t until national news programs began to announce “Like us on Facebook” and “Follow us on Twitter” after their nightly news cast (seems like a decade ago, but really only a few years back), boldly displaying Facebook and Twitter logos on everyone’s TV screen. Today those requests are much less frequent, and whatever happened to Brian Williams? Maybe he’s busy conjuring up stories to post on Social instead of invading our living rooms every evening with his fantasies.

Yes social is relevant. Yes social can drive business. But not all social media channels are equal for all businesses. Consumer products should try to penetrate the wall Zuckerberg has built between them and their audience of Likes by paying advertising fees directly to Facebook. That is where their audience lives and breathes. Perhaps Twitter, which is no longer the Wall Street darling it once was and is quickly fading on the numbers that count – new user growth and let’s not forget the revolving door installed on their CEO’s office. Or maybe Instagram. The list goes on. The first step in any social media campaign is understanding a client’s business: their customers and where they live and participate in social media. Our company social media channel is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is where business people go on social media to find new potential suppliers.

So there you have it. Our focus is on LinkedIn, and in a brief one hour meeting about all aspects of internet marketing can you convey the entirety of what an educated client must know to make an informed decision about the future of their business online. Back to the title of this story, this was today’s headline for Site Pro News “Will Businesses Take Facebook’s Bait This Time?” Coincidental?