10 Social Media Facts You Want to Know

There is a lot of hype, dis-information, and crap available about social media. What follows is not crap but good stuff and the credit goes to Charles Heflin. He twittered about a discussion started on his blog. So I went and took a look. He asks, and I think, begins to answer the following questions:

How can we produce awareness that will produce a positive return on investment for time and/or money spent in social media?

In other words … How can we produce a positive cash flow by utilizing the seemingly limitless prospect base that is having millions of conversations about millions of things every day? Via Is there any return on investment in social media?

While the article is written by and for the SEO community it contains some really excellent observations. I have not excerpted his 10 statements as I would have to pull almost all his content and that would not be fair or a good SEO practice. You really should read his article to get the context and his insights. Here is my take on what his 10 statements:

1. He talks about the level of success in media networks being linked to how quick you create trust.
2. Using social media with the hope to create link love and game SEO is short sighted.
3. Social media requires engagement to work. That means we (you and I) have to get involved and build awareness of ourselves not just our brand or products.
4. For more than a decade I have said that the best marketing uses an “educational” approach because it adds value and builds trust. Charles speaks of the need for “content must be educational, enlightening or entertaining”.
5. Social media success is determined by your ability to connect with people not your internet marketing knowledge and skills.
6. Charles fails to be specific about this “law of engagement”, so I have no idea what he plans on sharing with us. I would suggest that if you plan to use social media to overtly pimp, promote, and market directly to people - you will get eaten alive and actually hurt your brand.
7. “Sales resulting from social media interaction are directly proportional to the level of trust that you are able to achieve from your audience.”
8. We are moving from traditional SEO techniques to community driven content delivery.
9. Factors that contribute directly to social media ROI is trust and your ability to call visitors to action.
10. Listen first to determine their needs before you can engage them.

I think these are really astute observations and we need to figure out what and how we should do to implement what we have learned.

What are your observations?

How will this information change or affect the way you conduct yourself on social media sites?

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