You have seen it!  The soulless status update in your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account of a photo, logo, or brand with not personable remark, comment or statement included..just a link to someplace out in La-La-Land.  Usually, what is posted is a bland phrase, normally an incomplete sentence, that more or less says…Hey, Check Me Out! 

From what I am being told..many businesses see this type of communication as Social Media.  Really?!?!

What Went Wrong

Many businesses have lose site of what Social Media is based on…social networking.  It appears businesses are scared of the term ‘Social’.  To them, being Social does not sell anything.  A few of the business owners I have talked with have this picture of social networking being today’s version of hanging around the water cooler talking about how drunk someone got last night. A complete waste of company time and money.   Of course, many of them feel being social online diminishes their professional image.  Yes, there are still some dinosaurs still roaming the earth who own businesses. 

Old Marketing’s Extinction

Unfortunately, many businesses who have survived the crash of the economy in 2008 are still staggering around trying to find the Old ways of doing things in business they found comfortable.  The social media method of marketing started before the crash.  The failed economy forced everyone to pull back their marketing spending which highlighted the use of social media as a more viable way to promote their business to the consumers who where pushed back to spending more time at home near their personal computers.  This change to a more sociable method of marketing came about too quickly for many mid to large size businesses who today are still struggling to understand how to apply the new marketing styles to their business.   Many businesses became extinct due to not being able to deal with change.

Now, there are millions, if not thousands, of businesses who are on at least one social network site.  Many are on all of them.  Unfortunately, most have no clue how to promote their business in the social arena.  OH, they know how to advertise..the have been doing that for many years so they got the advertising process down.  Again, when it comes to social media, many businesses think that advertising in the space where a conversation should be held is SOCIAL MEDIA. 

Gotta Change

This is where the mystery starts for me with finding out just where these businesses have gotten that social media is “Free-for-ALL Media”. 

Somehow, businesses have to understand the value of social media and start using the social part of the media.  For those misguided businesses who are reading this..social media is a method of marketing where the business is promoted through effective conversations with consumers…or the general public.  The strength of social media is in the Word-of-Mouth marketing the conversations generate.  These conversations are initiated from someone who represents the company.  This representative can be someone, an employee if you like, who knows what they are doing or an outside party hired to handle the social media for the business. 

The key point is whoever is doing the social networking knows what they are doing or the promotions will fall on deft ears and eventually be seen as SPAM.

Growing Art Form

The use of social media for internet marketing has, in a way, become an art form.  There are many who say they know how to use social media and a few of them actually do.  Unfortunately, many people out to help businesses with their marketing make this claim to appear ‘Hip’ (sorry to use a dated term..just heard it used in a presentation recently and had to look up to see where the meteor was going to hit).

There are people who have paid their dues online and have mastered the art of creating profitable conversation with consumers.  These are the people businesses need to find.  In case you need help finding them, they will be the once who are having sociable conversations with people on Facebook.

The point of using Social Media that many business overlook is it can only be successfully used, online and offline, as part of a more social approach to marketing.  Too many businesses try to put the media in front of the Social and fail..When they fail they blame social media, social networking, the internet and anyone who is online as the reason their social media efforts did not work. 

My response to that is.. Keep your Media Social and it will work every time…  Let me know how I can help.