People are a lot more fun than traffic

A {grow} Community Week contribution by Leo Widrich

It seems that every web marketer is obsessed with traffic. Massive traffic.  But as I’ve become immersed in the social web, is it just me, or does that just ring kind of hollow? I have this uneasy feeling I have been unable to shake off.

What is traffic?

How does it support GOALS?

Does traffic always mean LEADS?

Are leads always the right goal to shoot for? If I’m a blogger, do I want leads?

Isn’t it all semantics?

So some call it traffic but really, we’re talking about people. Some call it leads … but isn’t it really conversations. Might that be even better than a lead?

I believe that taking a strong standpoint on what you are trying to achieve with your business starts with the words you use. They shape your philosophy and vision and are the doors to your future ideas.

Saying “guys, let’s seriously try and get traffic to our site, so we can increase the leads” sounds fundamentally different than saying “is there a way we can reach out to more people in our niche and start conversations with them?”

Yes, eventually, they are trying to achieve the same thing. Only the techniques and manners to achieve their goals will be different. And I am making a bold bet here: The results will be too.

What’s your business attitude?

Deciding the fundamental attitude toward your specific market starts with the very attitude you are taking toward people.

And I believe that especially on the level of social platforms, more of a “people and conversation” focus can make or break a campaign and a whole social media presence.

This can’t be forced into anyone’s head from one day to the next. It is a complete new way of thinking and looking at things online.

People are a lot more fun than traffic

What I am grateful for is that it is finally possible to take the “social” in media very serious. Finally we can just talk to people in our niche, without hard selling and pushing and build relationships the old-fashioned way.

If you really have the values for people and conversations at your very heart and not only on your lips, I believe this gives you the biggest success possible: to have fun and enjoy yourself whilst you are doing it all.

Talking to people sounds a lot more fun to me than generating traffic!

So how do you this makes a difference in how you approach your market?

Leo Widrich is the Co-Founder of BufferApp a new Twitter Tool to make publishing tweets easy without flooding your followers. (He blogs Twitter tips here.)