Social Media: Take Two Breaths and Email Me in the Morning

If you're feeling guilty, outdated, or downright dowdy because your business is not using social media, consider this article your safe island in the storm. "Just Do It" may work for Nike, but it has no place in your marketing efforts.

The mere size and speed of social networking has made everyone sit up and take notice. The mantra, "If Facebook were a country, it would be the world's third largest" is enough to make any business person's heart go pitty-pat. Or consider this: a recent Consumer Reports"State of the Net" survey said "…two out of three online U.S. households use social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, nearly twice as many as a year ago." Feeling the old guilt about missing the boat creeping into your brain? Stop it! I promise this will be a guilt-free read. So, continue on without fear.

If you get nothing else from this column, take this one thought: just because a marketing tactic exists, it doesn't mean it's right for your business. Social media is one of many ways to reach your customers. Some have been around since the 1920s, when young Allen Odell convinced his father to allow him to put up small wooden roadside signs to pitch their product Burma Shave. And some were invented within the last few years, such as blogs, Facebook business pages, and YouTube channels. They all work in some form or another. But they won't necessarily drive the right clients to your bottom line if they don't suit your marketing objectives and their needs. The real bottom line here is that any marketing effort starts with the answers to a few key questions: