I am interested in some things I have been reading and mostly about what we hear from various business meetings we attend.  Many people think Social Media is a waste of time.  I can understand how they feel, especially if they look at it as ONE idea or a single point in time.

But let’s look at it this way, from perhaps a more “traditional” approach. If you were to attend ONE business networking event in ONE town on ONE night and you walk into the room, you look around, you don’t know a soul.  And more importantly, EVERYONE else in the room, is engaged with those they know, do business with (or want to).  People are laughing, private jokes shared and the “Hey, I haven’t seen you in ages!” wafts across the room.

You wander over to the buffet table, grab a coffee and perhaps a celery stick.  You’re thinking, “I will give myself something to do, so I can stop feeling invisible.”  At the buffet table, you chat it up with another new face and though you are feeling a little bit better, you leave after about an hour of little interaction and are disappointed in that you didn’t meet many people and certainly didn’t generate any contacts or business. So why did you waste your time?

Social Media is just another way to network, with more people, more often.  There is no smoke and mirrors here.  Only with Social Media you don’t SEE the people at the party all ready ignoring you.  BUT, it is happening.  If you went back to that “traditional” business face-to-face networking event two or three times, engaged with more people, snooped around and found out who was going to be there, find them at the event and introduced yourself (without being “THAT GUY”), maybe your results would change.

Social Media is the very same, only it is a little trickier, because unless you are using Skype, no one sees you eye to eye in close to real time.   No body language to see that you are a wonderful person that everyone wants to do business with.  When someone asks you a question face to face, you answer it or give it your best shot.

Same again with Social Media.  Someone sends you a tweet with a question, you need to answer them.  It is the polite and right thing to do.

Building an army of FOLLOWERS or FANS is key to defeat the Social Media echo. How can it matter what you have to say, if there is no one listening?  If you haven’t built those online relationships to have people to listen to you or to help them with their questions and YES, even if it is something you don’t sell, ESPECIALLY when it is something you don’t sell.

So plan to building and maintaining your online relationships just like you do your face to face ones.  The results may surprise you!

(*Thank you pheasantlanding.com for the use of your image)