Small Business Blog

A guest post by Chris Ott:

First, it is a very good idea  to use social media for business. Stay sales focused, business network with people you trust, and stick to referral marketing… oh yeah… and avoid the experts.

Preaching to the Choir

Has anyone noticed that every third person on Twitter claims to be a social media consultant by trade ? (guilty as charged)  Whether they call themselves a “Twitter Tycoon”, “Ambassadors of Buzz”, “New Media Expert”, “Social Media Cszar”, the amount of professionals (Not involved in online marketing by trade) who are regularly using social media for business, has to be much lower than most industry people would want to believe. With the mountain of hype generated by “experts”, it can be difficult to understand who their message is intended for. At times navigating the social media sphere can feel like wondering around a room full of “experts” with blinders on shouting “Social Media!” at the top of their lungs, absolutely oblivious to the audience.

The Be Nice Paradigm (Paradox) of Social Media Marketing

Of course there is also the “Be Nice” paradigm that many social media marketers espouse. These marketers believe that social media marketing is somehow morally superior than our fore bearer’s tactics. As if promoting your wares via direct message somehow serves a greater purpose than calling someone and wearing your intentions on your cuff. Worse, there are those who vilify others, they shout “SPAM!” when their competitors gain an edge but privately  slash and burn to maintain their own little pedastool.

Everyone is Equal

Someone once told that social media was great because it represented the democratization of marketing, that person is now a coffee runner at TechCrunch. You’re a fool if you believe that budget, man-power,and time are not critical to social media success.

For Small Business Owners

If you’re considering hiring a guru, sultan, pharaoh, shah, or any other social media expert, be sure to set a minimum of quantifiable goals that you’re comfortable with. If they can’t make any promises or give any assurance don’t even hire them in the first place. The most common cop-out in the social media world: “You can’t really measure the benefits of this social media strategy”. You can quantify sales leads and referral marketing.

Who in Social Media,  Criticizes Social Media?

The answer is, “not very many”. For professionals that pride themselves as being cutting-edge innovators, there are very few  in the field who dare question the status quo or offer criticism of tools and strategies that more popular entities have already approved.

Tags: Business Networking, referral marketing, social media for business

This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Business Networking, referral marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.