Raster Media's Soapbox

I recently came across an article in one of my LinkedIn groups called “Social media is Crap.” I literally fell out of my chair laughing that the author had chosen to use one of the predominant social media portals in the world to talk about how crappy social media was.

His article actually sparked quite a discussion with dozens of comments, which leads me to one of two conclusions:

First – This guy has no clue about what he is saying, look how much interaction / discussion he got from one simple 3 paragraph discussion.

Now he’s gone from some obscure member of a random LinkedIn group to a pseudo-celebrity for a short term.

Or Second – This guy is really smart, by playing on people’s frustration with social media he’s created a following of similar minded people all wanting to talk (on a social media site) about how social media is letting them down.

Here is the link to the article in question if you are curious: http://short.to/12ng8

Now I figure that all the people responding to this article can’t all be evil geniuses, using the platform to complain about how their Facebook and Twitter pages aren’t performing so I wanted to take the opportunity to hopefully educate some readers about how to effectively use social media to promote your company.

We take for granted that which we use on a regular basis in my industry, understanding how social media impacts a company (positively and negatively) is one of the reasons our clients come knocking on our door, we have the ability to explain how social media works and what they can do to take advantage of it.

So here is the big secret to social media:

Social Media is comprised of like minded people – your friends on Facebook (generally) are people who are interested in at least the same stuff you are, right? Now imagine that you are meeting a friend for coffee, cocktails, a jog, lunch or wherever and your friend says “hey Geoff, I remember you were looking for a great place to take your wife for your anniversary. Well you should really go to [insert name of random restaurant here].”

Wait, did you miss it?

My friend just recommended a restaurant (at no cost to the restaurant) because he had an enjoyable time there. Now guess what happens… That’s right  – I go and have a meal at that restaurant because my friend aka my trusted source for information just told me that he enjoyed a place.

Social Media acts in the exact same fashion, this is why traditional advertising & marketing types don’t get it! You don’t pay to advertise on a social media portal. The marketing is word-of-mouth, traditionally it’s been very difficult to track but Twitter followers and Facebook fans have made this easier than ever.

There are something like 500 million Facebook users, each has nearly 100 friends on their list. Sure there are a few power users but imagine I tell my friends that I like a certian restaurant, line of clothing, brand of tire, flavor of ice-cream, type of music, etc. They are at least going to check it out, visit the site, make a purchase, come to dinner, come to a show, etc.

So there it is the Social Media Mystery all wrapped up in less than 1,000 words for you. So quit complaining and start your social media campaign today!

Call me if you need any help -

Geoffrey Radcliffe

Raster Media www.RasterMedia.com