This Is What Social Media Is.. NOT!

A lot of people get misled by all the hype they hear about social media. I don’t blame them. People who write about these things, me included, make it all sound like it’s all this and that. But it’s not.

Yes, a lot of stuff is happening in the social sphere. Innovations and new tools appear and people are looking for ways to augments these to their current business process. To borrow the famous Transformers quote, “There’s more to it than meets the eye.”

Social media is not easy.

To some extent, it is. Signing up for an account and exploring the basic functions of the different social media tools is easy. It’s finding their practical use for your business that’s tricky. It takes time to master the full use of Web 2.0 tools, and an even deeper degree of engagement to fully understand how things work.

Social media is not a quick fix to your marketing problems

The time you put in to learn the ropes of social media is one thing, waiting for results to surface is another. It’ll take time before people get comfortable enough to respond to your social media marketing efforts. Until that day comes, you won’t see much of the fruits of your labor.

Social media will not bear fruits on its own

Web 2.0 tools are not the type of things that you install and then leave to do it’s work. It’s not how things work. You need to see things through as they go along. This means keeping track all the changes that happen from day one.

Social media isn’t just about growing a list of names

It’s about building relationships. What good is a list of a thousand contacts if not one of them would want to connect with you in a more meaningful level?

Social media isn’t all about return of investments

We’re not discounting the fact that you’re incorporating social media marketing to the business to improve sales and improve income generation. However, you should keep in mind that it’s not all about the money. Relationship building and meaningful content rank higher than monetary returns in the social media world.

Social media is not the new SEO

It is, in fact, a set of tools that compliment what SEO does. What SEO does to improve visibility in the search engines, SMO does the same, but on a wider social media-verse scale.

Hopefully, this helps clear things for those who have been misled. If you do have questions or insights to share, please don’t hesitate to do so over at the comments section. I’d love to hear from you.