“Facebook” is not a strategy

Neither is “Twitter,” “speaking,” or “handing out coupons.”  These are all tools or tactics used to implement a strategy, not strategies by themselves.  Your

strategy may include one or more of these, but they are not strategies.

Way too often, I work with overwhelmed, overworked solopreneurs who don’t have any strategy in their business.  There are so many experts (and some regular people too) telling you to do so many different things to build your business that it gets to be too much just to keep up.  This is the problem of working without a strategy – you just keep doing more and more and hope that something works.  Eventually, you’ll run out of time or become fried. How might one of these tools fit within a strategy?  Using Facebook as an example, here’s how it might fit into a few bigger strategies:

• A business has an offer (something for sale or a free download) on their site, and uses Facebook posts to encourage people to click through and see the offer.  Other things being equal, more views should equal more sales or optins.  The strategy is to get views on the offer and make sales from your site; Facebook is one tool to get views on the offer.
• A business offers something unique that most people don’t know exists and uses Facebook to educate people that this product or services is available.  Making sure the right people know about the company and the problems it solves can help generate sales.  People can’t buy what they don’t know about, so the strategy is to educate people so they can buy if the product is right for them; Facebook is a tool to educate potential customers.
• Facebook can be one way to gather interested and targeted prospects and communicate with them.  The strategy is to stay in touch with interested people; Facebook is a tool for that.

There are many more examples of how Facebook can be a tool you use to implement a strategy, but the point of these examples is that the tool is not the strategy.  If you are using Facebook, you can’t expect to generate sales just by being on Facebook.  The same can be said of any other tool you might use to implement a strategy. Before you add the next activity to your workload, make sure you have a clear strategy for this new activity.  Don’t ever add something without knowing how it can help your business. In the comments, tell me about one strategic activity you do to build your business.