Social media marketing – why make it hard?

You’re a small business owner and you have to get on that social media thing. Everybody says so. Everything you read says so. You can’t turn around without someone asking what you’re doing with social media.

And you’ve looked at it. You’ve been on Twitter and Facebook and you’ve read articles and you’ve talked to people about blogs and sites and a puzzling number of other things.

You hear words and terms like analytics, SEO, presence, community, customer interaction, digital cross-pollination, data mining … And you’re cross-eyed and feel like a fool because you don’t know how to spell half the things people talk about, much less understand what they mean.

Now you’re convinced it’s all rubbish.

You’re right. It is all rubbish. Except, it isn’t. The language, the tone, the attitudes and a good deal of the thinking is noise, but the essence isn’t. It means a lot and at its most basic, it means revenue. The problem you face isn’t social media; it’s the fact that people try to complicate something that is really simple. (There are careers to be found in complicating the simple.)

With social media, there are only a few things to keep in mind:

1. Whatever it is, keep it simple. You don’t need a monstrous web site; you need a simple one that has worthwhile information on it.
2. You need a blog only if you have something to say. If you have nothing to say, don’t have a blog.
3. Everything you do online is a one-to-one conversation with a human being, like you. Treat that person the way you would want to be treated. Speak to them that way.
4. Use the Internet. Use social media. Not as a business, but as yourself. That is the only way to understand how they should be used.
5. Pay attention to how people you know, like family and friends, use social media, how they speak of it, and why they use it.
6. Screw up fearlessly; apologize for the dumb things you do; laugh at yourself. People love that. It keeps them coming back because they realize there is a real person at the other end.
7. Worry about the numbers later. Worry about the terminology later. Wait till later to figure out what the rubbish means and why it isn’t rubbish.

There is no reason to complicate what is really very simple: talking to people. That’s all social media is. That’s why it’s called social.