Why You Shouldn’t Get Involved in Social Media

by Jacob Morgan

There are multiple posts looming around the web glorifying and praising the use of social media. Granted social media can be a valuable relationship building tool, it is not for everyone. Social media is like a fine wine that needs to appreciated, analyzed, sniffed out, and not always swallowed. So what are some reasons that you shouldn’t get involved in social media?

Advertising

If your sole goal in participating in social media is to get access to as many “connections, followers, and friends” as you can so that you can barrage them with links to ads (or ads themselves) then you should not get involved in social media. Not only that but you should also find the nearest bamboo shoot and jam it in your eye…seriously. I know what you are thinking; perhaps that is a little harsh. Well that may be the case. Perhaps the social media advertiser is just a lost sole in need of guidance, in need of some sort of direction. That very well may be the case, if so, then by all means forgo the bamboo shoot and go do some social media homework, if however, if you are well aware of social media best practices and continue to advertise to the rest of us…well…bamboo for you.

Paying someone to be you

If your goal is to sign up for social media platforms in hopes of paying someone else to do the talking and friend adding for you, well then you have no soul. Social media is about building relationships, if you are not the one doing the relationship building, then what is the point? It is important to understand the most people who use social media are interested in genuine interaction with people; nobody wants to be tricked or bamboozled into interacting with someone that they are not. Think about it like this, you are going on a date with a very intelligent attractive man or woman. A few dates later you are really starting to connect with this person, all of a sudden you find out this person is not the sex you thought they were. You were lied to. Now you are angry, upset, and sad. You never want to see the person again, you hate them. Get the idea?

Using social media strictly for SEO a.k.a. SEOcial Media

Social media can be a great SEO strategy if it is a by-product and not a main goal. What do I mean by this? It is one thing to go onto a blog and post intelligent comments, interact with other users, and provide some sort of value. It is quite another thing to go onto a blog and post “hey check out my blog” along with a link. Most readers are very good at picking up non-genuine blog comments and eventually you will just damage your reputation. There is no point ranking number 1 on Google if you have a reputation for being a spammer and are disliked. I will admit that I have used social media for SEO purposes. I regularly post on several other blogs/sites but I do my best to post something intelligent, something that provides value. If you do a good job of writing quality content on other sites (and on yours) then people will begin linking to you on their own accord.

He who has the most connections wins

Have you ever asked yourself, “What’s the point of having 10,000+ twitter followers, 2,000+ linkedin connections, or 3,000+ facebook friends?” Seriously what’s the point? Now there is nothing wrong with having a lot of social media connections, but are you the one spending hours each day trying to follow as many people as you can on twitter so that they will follow you back? Are you adding random friend requests on facebook to boost your friend count? Why? I want to draw a very fine line here so that there is no confusion. This section refers to people who make it their mission to seek out and add as many contacts or friends as they can, so that they can either brag about it, spam everyone, sell their accounts, etc.

Sometimes we loose sight of the fact that social media is really relationship media. Social media can mean anything (a post on this later) but relationship media is about building actual connections that mean something, it’s about relationships. I send every new twitter follower I get a message thanking them for following me and saying that I hope to meet them OFFLINE, and I mean that. I actually want to meet my twitter followers because I am interested in building new relationships and learning from other people’s experiences (and stories). I only want people to connect with me if they are genuinely interested in me (or my work, writing, etc.) and I only want to connect with people that I am genuinely interested in.

“The glue that holds relationships together – including the relationship between the leader and the led is trust, and trust is based on integrity.”

~Brian Tracy