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Social Media – Fact or Fiction

Written by: Deborah Osgood

Article Overview: With the hype of Social Media venues as the next greatest tool, the important question to ask from a business perspective is what is the ROI? Clearly, one of the main advantages is networking. Today’s Social Media platforms provide opportunities to connect with anyone practically anywhere to share ideas about pretty much anything. In many respects, it is like the old fashioned neighborhood where you could quickly learn who to ask what when you had a particular question. However, unlike the neighborhood where exchanges were face-to-face, social media posts can be from anyone, anywhere publishing most anything. This distinction is important when it comes to business.

Social Media – Fact or Fiction

With the hype and continued adoption of Social Media venues as the next greatest tool, the important question to ask from a business perspective is what is the ROI? Clearly, one of the main advantages is networking. Today's Social Media platforms pretty much provide opportunities to connect with anyone practically anywhere to share ideas about pretty much anything.

In many respects, Social Media is today's platform for yesterday's main street community or old fashioned concept of neighborhood. Everyone knew everyone else, cared about each other, and looked out for each other. You knew that Tom's grandmother was very ill and so you shared the concern and sorrow, and that Sarah just had twin girls and so you shared the excitement and joy. In between, you shared information about various aspects of your lives - what kind of tires to buy for your car, the value of vitamins, where to go on vacation - all of which were personal opinions and viewpoints.

Interestingly, though, even though the information was opinion and not necessarily fact, you had a pretty good idea who you could depend on because you knew the source face-to-face. With such personal contact, it was simpler to assess the value of the opinion and who to trust. For example, you know Dana is a stickler for carefully researching information before making a decision. Chris, on the other hand, is apt to wing it when offering her opinion. As a result you are more likely to trust Dana's opinion more than Chris' opinion.

This distinction is important when it comes to Social Media today and its role in business. Without knowing the source of the opinions being shared through Social Media venues it becomes more difficult to validate the accuracy or trustworthiness of the source.

For example, perhaps someone posts information about hiring tax benefits offered by ARRA. As a result of reading this, your business makes a hiring decision that turns out to not qualify for the tax credit at the end of the year because of some specific IRS detail that was not fully conveyed.

While this may be a poor example, the main point is caveat emptor when it comes to accepting information as fact when shared in Social Media venues. "Content in context" continues to be an important qualification to look for when making any business decisions.

For example, view a state-by-state resource directory of available local government and nonprofit business mentoring and assistance agencies at BUZGate.org that you can contact at no charge about most any business question. myExpertNet is another option for connecting with validated business experts by topic. Like the old-fashioned neighborhood community, these online networks make it easier for you to get to know who has the business information, advice and resources that you need and that you can trust.

Technology can be a beautiful thing, but your gut instincts and a little bit of pre-validated source data are timeless assets not to be undervalued.

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Article Tags: business assistance, networking, social media



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Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":gvtxsu7g]Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff[/quote:gvtxsu7g] Hi Jeff, Thanks for the suggestion. Why don't you start a new post (with a poll) to see if there's enough interest in your idea for a social media section?
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