Money Matters, Simplified.
On Social Media, Being Human is Being Smart
Social media helps business and people connect and share their interests and likes, thus offering a more personalized experience.
Tue, 08/09/2011 - 12:01 by Steve Anderson
Instead of focusing only on yourself and your business, try to know what interests others by talking to them about it. Social media has become a networking and marketing tool for businesses. From blogs to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Google+, social media has come of age.
Using social media for business purposes is still evolving and will continue to evolve. There are no hard and fast rules to be successful at social media. Because it is new, you have to see what works and what doesn’t work.
However, certain things can adversely affect your social media participation and hurt business.
Blunders That Can Hurt Business
1. Treating Social Media as an Ad Space
Which it is not. The social media allows you to participate in two-way conversation. The advertisement fall under mass media, and are not meant for social networking sites. Use social media as it is intended to be, that is, a medium of personalized communication.
2. Self-Promotion
Social media messages should be fresh and connecting. Without that, your feed gets repetitive, sounds stale and like self promotion. All these can kill your social media participation in the beginning itself.
As social media is meant to connect with people, it works best if you are really being social.
3. Focusing on Yourself and Your Business
Instead of focusing only on yourself and your business, try to know what interests others by talking to them about it.
Users on social networking sites don’t wish to be hit with promotions of your business or your activities every time they login in to their account.
Talking with people about travel music, etc. can go a long way in building interesting, insightful conversations and hence a robust community.
4. Wasting Time Increasing Numbers
It is a common thing about social media. All of us waste time in worrying about the numbers of followers we have.
Instead, try to be always in touch with those who are following you. Growth in social media takes time and be patient.
5. Not Taking Initiative
It is not enough to have an account and expect people to contact you. They simply don’t contact you.
Instead, take initiative: start conversations, share interesting links that help others, and contribute something that others find helpful.
Above all, be human. After all, that’s easy because you are born one.
