What do you think of when I say “social media”? Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Blogging? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. What else? How about engagement, crowd sourcing, exposure and reach? Yup, all of those too. But in all of my time researching and using social media, especially from a small business angle, there’s one aspect that almost always gets overlooked and forgotten.
It’s actually half the meaning of the phrase, the most important aspect of it, and it’s the word “social”.
Being social is by far and away, the most important skill / ability / talent that’s required in order for any social media strategy, campaign, or even just a profile, to be created. It may sound like a cop out, and an obvious answer, but in reality it’s 100% true.
Money can buy you everything in the social media world. It can buy you the most well designed blog, the most comprehensive Facebook page, the most complete and thorough LinkedIn account, heck it can even buy you “likes” and “followers” but it can’t buy you social skills. And if you don’t have any, or are lacking in that department, the money you’ve spent, will go completely to waste.
Now when I mention the “lack” of social skills, I’m not entirely meaning that one has to be a recluse to qualify. A lack of social skills also means having certain “self-imposed inhibitions” when it comes to things such as public speaking, or being video or audio recorded. As strange as it may seem to some, there are many, MANY business owners out there that are terrified of putting themselves “out there” in the interest of advertising their business through social media.
I’ll be the first to admit that the opportunity to talk in front of a large audience stirs certain uneasy emotions inside. And the thought of even recording on camera brings about similar feelings. But that’s just me, and I know exactly why I do it. The great thing is, I’ve accepted it, and the more and more I do it, the better I become. And it would be entirely safe to assume that even the most seasoned of presenters and public speakers have that little voice inside them, saying “what if?” We’re all human after all.
Put bluntly, to get the most out social media, you simply can’t be a keyboard warrior. You have to be seen (in YouTube videos, in person, holding presentations) and you have to be heard (on podcasts, on interviews, on Skype calls). There will come a time when most businesses will have social media as part of their “make up” and to differentiate between the competition and you, you’ll need knockout content and kick ass engagement and this knockout content, will almost always be multi-media.
And this is just another great thing about social media. Not only will it help develop your business in the hundreds of ways that we all know about, but it will help you develop personally. It’ll help you slowly chip away at the walls you’ve built around speaking in public, or in front of a lens. It’ll help you talk to your audience in ways that you’ve never been able to as you get to know and understand them better, and even if you think you do a good job of all this already, social media will just make you that little bit better. I guarantee it.
dEx - gossip ink.social media
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