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If everyone else is moving forward and you are not, is that not the same as them standing still and you moving backwards?

Paralysis of Analysis is defined in Wikipedia as:

Over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation, so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome…A person might be seeking the optimal or “perfect” solution upfront, and fear making any decision which could lead to erroneous results, when on the way to a better solution.

I often hear these excuses from business owners paralyzed when it comes to Social Media and Online Marketing.

I don’t know what to do.
I don’t have the time.
I don’t want to make a mistake.

So your answer is to do nothing?

A deer in the headlights freezes…and then it gets run over.

Take action and things start to happen. The path will become more clear as long as your moving forward. You also pickup ideas and learn things along the way. As you move forward, even if you make a mistake, you are still better off than standing still.

Create a Facebook page
Start a YouTube channel
Open a Twitter account

You don’t have to go through them all immediately. You don’t have to write 100 tweets or Facebook updates or get 10 videos ready. Just open an account and start a profile.

When you take action you may find the vault inside of your head open up and it is full of creative ideas.

Pretend you are a customer looking for a solution that your company offers. What would you do? What would you hope to find? What do you actually find when you go to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube?

Which of your competitors seems to be doing it right?

Hire a consulting company to do research for you. Let them come to you with a detailed explanation of networks you should focus on. Research is the biggest and first step to determine the path you should take.

Warning—> If you jump in without doing any research at all, you may not make a mistake that costs you millions…but you may have to start over. As an example, one of my clients created a personal profile on Facebook and used it as a business page. That is against the rules of Facebook and it can get you kicked off. Do some research or hire someone then…TAKE ACTION.

Social Media overwhelm may be costing you money.

There are two primary reasons:

You are overwhelmed and your spending money, time, and other resources. You are dedicating those resources to your Social Media as you try to manage a Facebook page , a Facebook personal profile, a YouTube channel, a Twitter account, LinkedIn, a blog, and more…
You are so overwhelmed with Social Media that you are doing nothing. You don’t have any accounts or if you do, those accounts and profiles are useless because you don’t do anything with them because you feel so overwhelmed.

If you are suffering from #1(too many accounts-not enough resources)…all accounts get diluted and it is tough to get results from any of them.

If you’re suffering from #2 (paralysis of analysis) you could be missing out on new customers and the potential for strengthening relationships with existing customers.

When one of your competitors is using Social Media to build strong relationships with their costumers they may be luring some of your customer base away.

We are at that point that customers are expecting more than just a sale. They want relationship and interaction. If you are not interacting with your customers where they already are(Facebook, blogs, etc.) and your competitors are, how long do you think it will be until your customers are going elsewhere?

The networks in social media are massive. Each person on Facebook has an average of 140 friends so 10 people have a reach of 1400 on the first level. Take that 1400 and multiply that by 140 and you have 196,000. You can see how big the networks get and it is feasibe that many of your customers are connected to your competitors customers. That is good news if you are using Social Media to your advantage and bad news if you are not.

It is important to determine why you are suffering from Social Media overwhelm? Is it because you are listening to everything that comes across your desk or in your email inbox?

Go to Amazon and type in “Social Media” and you will get 153,053 results.

Everyone has their opinion and everyone says “Open this account. Open that account. Open this account.”

The truth is you need to find someone that can give you good advice and tell you the Social Media you can focus on…what works for you and your industry based on the resources that you have. You do not have to have an account and a profile on every single one of the social media platforms that are out there. Here are some tips:

Most businesses should have a Facebook Fan Page- There are over 600 Million people on Facebook
A blog is totally in your control and should be installed as a page of your website. Connect with customers on your terms.
A YouTube channel is good for hosting videos and driving traffic back to your website or blog.
Twitter is good for continuous connecting and short, valuable messages.
LinkedIn is good if your goal is to sell B2B.

If you don’t have unlimited time or money to dedicate to all of them, then you should pick the ones that are going to work for you and your industry based on the resources you have. As you get comfortable and understand where your market is, expand.

Then you have 3 options:

Hire someone in-house to do your Social Media.
Hire someone outside to do all of your Social Media.
Hire someone from the outside to help you with your Social Media.

I believe most businesses should choose option 3. You may think as a marketing agency, we would want to do all of your Social Media because that should pay the most.

The truth is, I believe you should participate in your Social Media because nobody knows your customers better than you do. You may not have the time to do it all yourself but if you bring in an outside consultant and allow other team members to participate…you may be wildy successful.