You both stated solid ideas about social media for me. Bob’s comment about Twitter and Facebook serving as pointers to one’s website for content, special reports, etc is a great way for people to get to know you and your site.

David, your comment about defining what your strategy is has to be carefully crafted before you can expect any ROI. Small steps toward improving or generating business is always a plus.

Social Media for me is another avenue to let the world know about one’s business! It’s a door opener.

Thanks for the good suggestions.

Lesley Peters
Qualified Communication Services

Social media is far from useless as a general branding engine I guess… and for some businesses and people it works pretty well – I’ve seen Etsy sellers use Twitter to drive traffic to their latest listings for one-of-a-kind art pieces, and drive sales too.

For a lot of consultants and authors and people in the “expert” business of selling knowledge your time is better invested in developing profitable advertising, marketing systems, writing non-disposable content like articles, your blog, newsletters, and books. Tweeting (for example) is present-tense thing which is easily forgotten.

And as far as making “friends” on Facebook in order to sell to them… well, it requires an awful lot of time to cultivate those relationships – to me the question is whether I want to live a faux-social life by “networking” inline… when I look at the tedium, the randomness of it, the difficulty in measuring results, the answer for me is mostly “it’s a time suck” – and that’s what I tell most of my clients who wonder about Facebook and Twitter and all that stuff.

It’s not a total waste to participate, but if you focus exclusively on social media I believe you’re investing in a way of marketing that only works with great investment of time which is more profitably spent elsewhere in general.

You’re entirely in charge of how you express your social side, but the upside is building a bigger network that can easily be directed to your blog/real substance.

As Seth Godin says, you’re building a permission asset in which people receive messages that are expected, personal and relevant.

Relevance is relative, but always the customer’s decision in any venue. Social media reinforce the first two thirds of the asset: you, your brand, your products and services. Lots to leverage.

It could be a phone call, a web lead, or a hit to your website but whatever it is it should be defined FIRST before you create a social media strategy.