I want to talk just a little about social media. As you are probably aware a couple of social media sites are facebook and twitter! There are more but those are the two that I spend my time with. More with facebook though.

What is social media? In my own word its a place for people with common interest to share things and interact with one another. Notice I did not say read advertisements all the time! I mean its like you watching your favorite tv program and every 10 seconds there was a commercial airing. You would get sick of it and pissed at the advertiser. You do not want to take this approach with advertising on social media as well.

I'll give you an example: I am a car racing fan, yes I enjoy NASCAR and I follow the sport very closely. Now the first half of the season I think its NBC who airs the races and its great. They focus on the race and the commercials are very limited. The 2nd half of the season TNT airs the races and I hate it because they are always showing advertisements and over half the time they come back and something has happened and we missed it. Can you see how this can be frustrating? The same holds true for these social media sites!

I know you have heard this but you need to provide value and understand that the traffic is not instant but the more you interact and provide value the more people will read what you write and interact with you and the result is in the long run you skipped the instant gratification and are gong for long term results. A lot of people don't get that or refuse to believe it. The funny part about it is that there is no instant gratification and when they don't get it they either spam even harder (rather than change and get results) and then get pissed because nobody is looking and then they either give up or move on to the next thing.

Social media advertising works and works very well but like anything else there is a learning curve and takes a little work to achieve success with. Keep the bigger picture in mind and focus on the long term results.

Ethan

"Nothing great has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances." -- Bruce Barton, advertising executive