musings...

I have a quick rant to get off of my chest. I feel I have to repeat it, over and over, and it tires me.

Social media is not about:

• How many followers you have. Quality is far better than quantity.
• How many ways you can automate generating content. From the heart, your knowledge and insights are what people want and need.
• How much money you can generate from your social media activities. Sure, income is nice, and if you’re running a company essential. But social media is about the social aspect, not the media. If you can drive revenue from your activities, great, and congratulations. But, if that is the sole reason for your social media activities, you missed the point entirely, and you won’t make that much money from it because of that. You’ll also miss out on even more important gains from taking part in social media: the conversation, finding out about your customers and potential customers, getting feedback, helping (yes, you helping, not being helped!) and finally interaction.

What is social media about, then?

• The conversation, the conversation and the conversation.
• Reaching out in a way that is about the people you interact with, not about you.
• Showing your followers your business or personal soul. If they like what they see, you’ll get better conversations, better understanding and probably more sales in one form or another.

The next time you hear from someone about how you should use a system to get 10,000 followers on twitter; do yourself and them a favour: Tell them to go get lost.

The next time someone tells you how you just have to dupe people into visiting your blog to get the “uniques” up, tell them to take a hike. Your wasting your time doing this, and that of the people who choose to give you the time of day. If they feel duped in any way, they won’t like you any more, they certainly won’t recommend you, or continue to follow you:  you can also bet your ass they won’t buy from you either.

Stop thinking short term, start thinking long-term and start thinking relationships and not suckers.

You might also find you enjoy the experience a whole lot more too.

Image Credit: No? by photogail on flickr. Used under creative commons.