Four Fallacies of Social Media

Whenever a new medium is introduced and begins integrating into popular culture, it’s common for fallacies to begin forming, frequently spread either by those not using it or others who truly don’t understand the tactic’s full potential or reach. Don’t make the same mistake and assume any of the following, for you’ll be misjudging this robust and expansive tool for branding, positioning and two-way communication in the marketplace.

• Social media serves no purpose in business – it’s for recreational use only.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. What’s so special about social media networking is it allows you to be a little of both to your customers (or prospective customers). Why can’t you be their neighbor, their source for advice and answers and still be the place down the street where they like to get their hair styled? With social media, there’s nothing holding you back from developing genuine relationships with your customer base and using that connection to become better at what you do since you have a sincere, voluntary source for input and feedback.

• Social media will encroach on my personal privacy if I use it for my business.
Well, certainly if you use your web profile to represent both your work and personal life, this could be true and you may feel restricted with what information you share about what’s happening after hours. Easy solution. Develop a company web profile and a personal profile and don’t mix the two. It’s true that you may not want to combine your friends who’ve seen you at happy hour with those with whom you’re trying to develop a business relationship. So keep them separate. Promote the business web profiles wherever they may be – Facebook, Twitter, etc. – and only share your personal profiles with your closest friends and family.

• Social media is just for teenagers and college students.
Um, have you BEEN out on social media sites lately? Many of us have found our own grandparents exchanging links and sharing photo galleries with their friends! Social media continues to cross generations, cultures and industries, so what may have appeared to start with twentysomethings chit-chatting on MySpace has turned into a full-fledged community of many websites reaching a broad audience that’s diverse, global and quite eclectic!

• Social media is just a fad that will soon pass.
Like the Internet? Or rock and roll? Yeah, sure. It’s certain that like anything else social media sites will change in popularity, and this community’s purpose will no doubt grow and evolve as time goes on, but this tactic of using the internet to connect, communicate and reach people at a global level is here to stay. HOW this will be done five, ten or twenty years from now and through what kind of technology remains to be seen…