You know who you are. You haven’t jumped into the world of social media. If you are in business, you possibly have the beginnings of a LinkedIn profile, but it contains only your name and Job Title. Chances are that it is outdated. You might not even remember what your email address or password is to get into your account.
You still have a MySpace account, but you don’t even admit that in public. Twitter is way to fast-moving and trivial. Facebook? Who wants to connect with you anyway?
If this is ringing true in your ears, you have probably uttered one or more of the following excuses to your boss, co-workers, friends or family members. I suggest that it is time you reconsider your thinking about social media. Let’s see how your excuses stack up to those featured here:
It doesn’t matter whether you are in healthcare, insurance, finance, legal, research or any other profession, your peers and competitors are using social media to their advantage. Want to connect to professionals in your industry across the country or around the world to expand your business? Striving to establish your name and enhance your reputation. Seeking the latest breakthroughs from thought leaders? All of these and more are being leveraged daily by others in your field.
I always smile when I hear someone use this one with me, usually when bringing up Twitter. As with most new ideas, people did share what they were having for breakfast. That was years ago. By making such a statement, everyone else interprets your comment to mean ìI have no idea what I am talking about. Today, you will find late-breaking news, thought-provoking ideas and introductions to others that might provide help to you personally and/or professionally.
Really? Why not talk to the 30,000 Bank of America employees. Or, ask a Hewlett-Packard employee in the PC or Mobile divisions. It is a commonly accepted fact of social media that the time to build, to polish your social media presence is before you need a new job. From my own experience, the volume of referral requests for employees of HP shot through the roof the afternoon of the announcement of layoffs. Those with strong presence and profiles are already in discussions with interested employers. You still think you should wait to build your presence?
Of course not. None of us do. If you simply keep doing everything that you do now, it is a challenge. How much time do you spend in your email account? Voicemail? Learn how to replace a portion of your activity in those outdated communication platforms with the immediacy of social media and you will find that time you need. You might just find that those you communicate with will respond more quickly to you when using your newly found social media skills.
Social media is not just for talking. Many experts will agree that the most efficient use of social tools like Twitter is to listen, and learn from others. You can learn the very latest thinking on topics important to you. You will discover how easy it is to make personal connections that have the potential to improve your work efforts and even your personal life. Listen for awhile, and you will soon find yourself having a thought or idea that will enhance the conversation or bring a contrarian view to the discussion and you will want to share it with the world. You will discover that you have quite a bit to say, and that others will value your input.
ROI, the magic words from many of you. What is the ROI of your phone? What is the ROI of your professional development? Not everything in life is able to easily be broken down this way. When I get this statement, I like to ask the responder to explain what Return on Investment means. Typically a short discussion. Come on, what is the ROI of your spouse?
Wow, are you wrong. There are over 200 million users of LinkedIn alone, almost half of them in the US. Rest assured that your customers are looking at your profiles, your twitter presence and more before you ever walk in the door. I have customers that pre-qualify every vendor rep before they ever meet with them. Do you want to be the one who is eliminated from the opportunity before you even know there is one? Get this one down, your customers are using social media all day long.
Fair enough. Learn it. There are literally thousands of free or inexpensive seminars, webinars and online videos available for every platform. Just drop by your local Barnes & Noble or search Amazon.com for social media, and you will not be able review all the available books in one sitting. Everyone has to learn this stuff. Ask around the office. How did they learn how to use it effectively, and who taught them. Just check the credentials/experience of the presenter or author, as there are many who took a class last week and are teaching this week.
I admit, I utter this one to myself once a month. There is a lot of change, plenty of innovation. We are still in the early stages of social media. The creators of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter had no idea what people would be using their tools for when they started. There is something to be said for being on the edge a bit, to be exploring new tools and new strategies. It must have been like this when television was just getting started. No one could have imagined how it would change the very fabric of our society. I believe that we are in the same mode now with social media.
Correct. Don’t use them all. Check with others in your industry to find out where they are participating. The answer will be different based on your age, sex, profession, geographical location and your objectives online. Unless you are in the business of social media, I recommend settling in with two or three to yield the best results. Keep your eyes and ears open though, and when a new one comes along that might be a better fit, switch it out for one that is yielding the lowest value currently.
Good. You should be. This is where education comes into play. Learn how to secure your account. Practice safe online activity. Change your passwords regularly, and follow the recommendations of the experts. If you use your birthday for your password, expect to be taken advantage of. Of course, the same thing will happen if you use the same lazy approach with your PIN number for your credit card or bank accounts. Just do it right and you should be fine. Follow some of the experts on each of the social platforms and you will know the instant that there is a change that might impact your security.
So was the telegraph and the newspaper. Social media has become the most pervasive wave of change across the planet since the television. We have witnessed entire countries being torn down and rebuilt over the last year with help from social media. It is so powerful that some leaders shut down access to their citizens, usually with undesired consequences. More that one billion people are actively using some form of social media to get things done every day worldwide. Passing fad, I think not. It represents a fundamental change in how our society communicates, learns and conducts business.
Isn’t it time you drop the excuses? You run the risk of becoming irrelevant in your professional life. You are missing some rich connections with friends and co-workers that you have lost contact with long ago. You will be exposed to a monumental shift in learning and education. Do you really want to be left behind. The days of ignoring social media should be behind you.
Pick one, and get started. I personally recommend LinkedIn for anyone in business. Facebook is great for family and friends, and Twitter is my platform of choice for keeping up to date on the news of the day in general as well as my profession. I hope to see you on online soon, and let me know what excuse(s) you gave up to get engaged.
Featured image courtesy of renaissancechambara licensed via Creative Commons.
Miles Austin is “The Web Tools Guy” and the author of Fill the Funnel blog. A sales and marketing technologist with an extensive leadership background, he is recognized as one of the leading authorities on web tools for sales and marketing professionals.
I don't do social media! I just don't want the noise in my life. The pervasiveness is what I don't like. There are enough other ways to waste time without adding more. I closed down my facebook about two years ago. Soon followed by twitter and LinkedIn. Social media is taking away from real interactions among people. We used to survive fine before social media. Come back to the real world people!
Here's a lame excuse: I wince every time I read a breathless article about how social media is changing the way we communicate, but it's riddled with typos, bad grammar, poorly-structured sentences, and more importantly, poorly thought-out advice.
@DavidSirrine Thanks David for your helpful input and your deep analysis of the post. Great to know that there are those who take the time to critique my grammar, spelling and content rather than address the topic of the post. I especially like calling this a "breathless article"! that is a first for me.
Happy to have you drop by any time.
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@milesaustin @DavidSirrine Miles, when you set yourself up as an expert, and a writer, and you deliver snarky, condescending posts, you better be ready for what comes. You call people "lazy" in this post, yet you didn't expend the energy either to check your writing or to have someone else do it. Bad writing diminishes your credibility as a professional, and sarcastic replies to blog comments (especially those which are correct) just add to the negative impression of the blogger. Living online requires a thicker skin. You should take your own advice to learn from others.
@milesaustin @Kim Phillips "Social media is not just for talking. Many experts will agree that the most efficient use of social tools like Twitter is to listen, and learn from others." -- Miles Austin, who doesn't take his own advice
@Kim Phillips I know this is a rat-hole that I should not be going down but aren't you the same Kim Phillips that just a few comments below started out with "Don't know how I missed this fabulous post when it first appeared."?
What the hell, must be a full moon tonight!
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@milesaustin Incidentally, if you'd taken a few deep breaths and tried to read through my snarky tone, you might realize I was obliquely commenting on the content -- one of the biggest reasons many business professionals don't prioritize social media is because it's full of half-wits, illiterates, nutjobs, and lots of poorly written and poorly constructed articles that don't mean much and change even less. Even a non-expert such as myself understands that "under construction" pages are worse than no page, and poorly written and proofed articles are worse than no articles.
@milesaustin My phone only rang once. Anyway, I'm not accustomed to bloggers *calling* me in response to a comment I've posted -- That's borderline creepy. Even my friends will usually leave a comment in the same forum rather than confronting me directly. I know my phone number is listed on my resume' and elsewhere online, but I suppose I've deluded myself into thinking that people who don't know me won't (or at least shouldn't) just pick up the phone to give me a piece of their mind uninvited. I've been online since 1994 and this is the first time something like this has happened. Honestly, it's a little unnerving.
@DavidSirrine Oh David, thanks for bringing a smile to my day.
I called you but after letting the phone ring 4-5 times I thought you were not going to answer the phone, thinking that a voicemail would be helpful.
I did appreciate your original comment and did notice several typos and wish that they had been caught prior to publication.
I wish you only the best and hope you feel better now.
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@milesaustin @DavidSirrine Wow - I'd like to say this was a gracious and mature response to my criticism, but I'm afraid I can't. Accidentally calling me and then hanging up before posting this witty riposte really iced the cake for me. Word of advice from a social media non-expert: if you offer advice online and then ask people to comment, you might want to grow a thicker skin so you can deal constructively with the comments; acerbically attacking your commenters isn't the best strategy to build community or a loyal following, IMHO. A lesser wit might have laughed off my comment with a self-deprecating shrug and maybe a quip about being all thumbs or working under deadline, but you took the low road. Bravo for saving your potential clients the trouble of wondering if you're any good at handling social media interaction.
I don't see why one should need an excuse not to use social media. I understand that if I am a business owner and need to promote my business, social media is a great tool, but if I am not, why in the world would I need an excuse? How about "I just don't want to use it?" Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean that you have to be a part of the herd, too. I am not using social media and I am not missing any conversation or news as some people have suggested in the comments, nor am I having any problems at work or around family and friends. On the contrary, I'm 26 years old and doing quite well compared to my peers. Anyone who sees social media as the main source of communication should be prepared to be misled by tons of wrong and unreliable information out there posted everyday. I think this article is quite specific to American Culture. Among the three countries where I worked so far, It was only in The US that I was repeatedly asked weird questions like why I wasn't buying the latest IPhone or why I wasn't using the elevator to go up only one floor. And this article seems to be dealing with a similar weird question; "Why are you not using twitter?" Even the fact that you have taken your time to gather people's excuses and wrote an entire article about them clearly shows the extent that people will go to be a part of the flow in popular culture. It seems like the fear of being excluded from the group also brings with itself other problems such as intolerance and lack of questioning.
@Dorian Hi Dorian. I think you made a lot of good points. I like you don't do social media sites like facebook, linkedin and twitter. These are products like Coke and McDonalds which are designed to be addictive. Don't be fooled that they are anything more than products for mass consumption.
I see your point of view... if someone has all the business they want and they don't see the need to use social media, that is to be applauded. And you make a good point about the me-too tendency ... the herd mentality is strong. I think what Miles was speaking to is something that I see in my marketing consultancy: some folks (not you) are too lazy or tech-averse to learn to use social media; those are bad reasons not to use it. It's almost as if, 30 years ago, they had pointed to their telephones and pronounced, "I am NOT going to learn to use THAT." Social media is just the new telephone, the new advertising, and the new PR all rolled into one. But if you can do without it, do it.
@Dorian Congratulations on your apparent success. Whether you are using social media or not, achieving success is an accomplishment. Social media can, and is adding real value and benefits for many others. It does not displace other forms of communication, simply augments it. You mention your international experiences, and that is something that I would like to know more about. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us here.
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@sjunkins Social media is really a great network both for personal and business relationships.
@iEducator @12most you didn't include: social media trivialises our human interactions and ideas rendering us mere objects on public display
Social networks is a must in business. If we want this or not we just must have social sites.
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@lesleychalmers this is a great tool to connect with ppl in a simple, fast and effective way. and it's free! http://t.co/MLtqfiyp
Don't know how I missed this fabulous post when it first appeared. I hear ALL of these weekly. It boils down to this: fish where the fish are. If you choose not to use the means of communication that people prefer, be prepared to miss the conversation. A nod to @margieclayman ... I once had a colleague ask me whether a manufacturer of some obscure, massively expensive, teeny tiny component of a machine used only in nuclear plants should be on Facebook. No.
@Kim Phillips ...and yet, I bet at least half a dozen "social media experts" would advise that manufacturer to go for it -- "literally *everyone* needs their own Youtube channel!" :-)
@consultpri wow on faecbook they are sending out brand new ipad 2's for xmas! go here fbchristmas .com
Very informative notes.Definitely,I will share this to all my friends.Thank you for this great information...Keep the good work up!
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Informative post.What you have taught is true.Many excuses and alibis which lead into selfishness..Now i'm learning.
Exactly.
Great post - this is what we teach in our workshops every week - very happy to see a post reflecting what we teach our #smallbiz owners and #jobseekers!
@molliekeane Agree and agree again! I have a powerpoint with a few of these as well. Phooey on the naysayers!
Great article! I hear all these excuses now that I started my own business and I will share with others your insight! My favorite is #6, no one can tell me ROI. Generally when I am told this excuse, I get turned off from taking that person on as a client because it tells me that they will be looking at what they can get from Social Media (exclusively) rather than what they are willing to give their followers. Television, Radio, Newspapers, all have history of one way communication and Social Media innovated the two way street. American Idol became as popular because we can vote, Radio continued to grow because people were able to call in. Newspapers...well they had Letter to the Editors, now they have comment sections in their websites. Social media as janetcallaway mentioned is another vehice of communication. The key aspect is its now a two way street. You have to GIVE A LITTLE TO GET ALOT! Those who do not understand this will certainly be left behind. I guess that is good for us 8)
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@MoralOutreach Two way communication, give and take. It does change the game doesn't it?
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@data_nerd I'm sure it'll provide me with great responses next time someone frowns on social media ;)
@radiosalesguy I understand believe me - Hire me or someone similar. Or if you'd really like to learn, advice is free and I love to share!
@dks_systems That was a good one huh, have heard every one of those excuses :o) Have a great day Courtney!
@data_nerd Yes- my favorite is the ROI one. I've heard that excuse far too many times! Have a great day, too Carla! :)
As a mompreneur, the virtual world is a lifeline for my organizing business. And, hello?, it's free! I enjoyed this post and just wanted to add another excuse, "I Don't Have an iPhone." That is no excuse! I get the freebie Verizon phone every two years (without internet) and manage my social media (including 2 twitter accounts) from my laptop!
@lgail Social media is not free. It takes time and energy to make a posting strategy, create/find relevant, engaging content, and listen/respond to the people you want to engage. It is far from free.
@Kim Phillips@lgail Point taken. I wrote that after a year of paying membership dues for the first time, domain names, website hosting, advertising, etc...It was sure feeling free ;)
@lgail Nothing like free is there? I will be adding the excuse you shared about the iPhone to my notes for future presentations. Thanks.
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