I've succumbed to the temptation in the distant past. When I realized that true value was not achieved through these staged social interactions, I decided that my creative time is too prized and limited to devote to these types of games.
The reciprocation is false inflating of stats at worse and giving to get at best. The increased stats are not from potential customers who discover our shops organically or through our savvy marketing skills. Smart marketing has value and attracts potential customers without requiring reciprocation.
These social trains are not an authentic way to realize appreciation for our creativity. I doubt if most of the likers and followers ever darken our shop doors again after the initial rush. Why fool ourselves by basking in fake accomplishments? Why strive to receive a flurry of activity only to be ghosted the day after? Likes for likes and follows for follows are a lot of precious effort for hollow shop interaction and inauthentic stats. When we think about it, it's really being deceitful to our potential customers, isn't it? It's painting a contrived picture.
Our time is better spent improving our target marketing and SEO skills, and learning how to better promote our brands. Social media trains, blog hops and the like cannot successfully compete with intelligent growth. The effort devoted to improving business skills has long-reaching effects that guarantee long-range selling success.
Here is some info on SEO, an area in which we can all improve.
SearchEngineLand says:
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business.
SEO is a fundamental part of digital marketing because people conduct trillions of searches every year, often with commercial intent to find information about products and services. Search is often the primary source of digital traffic for brands and complements other marketing channels. Greater visibility and ranking higher in search results than your competition can have a material impact on your bottom line.
SearchEngineLand is chock-full of info on SEO, what it is, why it's important, how it works and how to learn it.
