You may have heard on the national television media recently
about the wide spread coverage of the race to 1 million Twitter
followers between Ashton Kutcher and CNN. Even more recently talk show
hosts like Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres have begun to see the value of
using Social Media. One could easily take away from all of this national
press coverage that Social Media is only about the numbers and that you
have to be a "celebrity' to get in on it. But in my opinion, it's no.
There are very good reasons for Small Business Owners to spend the time,
energy and money to get involved on Social Media web sites like
Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube. For a Small Business
Owner using Social Media should be about enhancing your marketing by
taking it to the next level and helping you sell more by driving
"qualified" visitor traffic back to your website.
In the midst of
all of the national media frenzy over "quantity" of connections or
followers, I find myself starting to think that Twitter and Social Media
in general may be starting to lose the essence of what made it cool to
use; a way to connect in an online social setting with people that you
have an affinity with, to expand your reach and influence beyond your
local markets using the Internet. Don't get me wrong, I think it is
great that people are connecting with each other and using Social Media
tools because that is what it is all about. However, I feel strongly
that it's not a good idea for people to start chasing followers just to
have followers or start to use Twitter or any other Social Media website
just because it is the "IN" thing to do. I believe that by doing so
they may start to lose that sense of individual and group connectivity
or "quality" that attracted everyone to Social Media in the first place.
So,
in the midst of all of this media frenzy you may have heard or gleaned
that you should establish a Social Media marketing strategy. What you
may not be hearing is why? I know that what I'm not hearing is that an
effective Social Media Optimization (SMO)* strategy should be all about
increasing your website visitor traffic and helping you sell more. Why
else would a Small Business Owner invest all of that time, energy and
money? Right? But, you have to be subtle about it and you should be a
giver, not a taker.