The 1950’s may seem like an early time for social media, but what I will tell you is the way social media has worked since long before it existed as you know it today. You don’t have to trust me on this, but I think you will.

When my “Baby Boomer” mother was a little girl of five years old, her father died unexpectedly from a very fast progression of cancer. He was a successful farmer who used all of the magical farming chemicals of the day. Although they kept the pests off his crops, nobody told him it would cause him to leave his family early, at only age 38.

When my grandfather died, farmers came from miles around to help harvest his crops for the sad widow and her three little kids that he left behind. They didn’t do it for self-seeking reasons, but they did it because it was the right thing to do. They were all a part of a community which came together for the benefit of one and all. They were a part of a social network that you probably never heard of, and it was called Mount Ida, Kansas.

I know you are expecting it to be snarky, so I will try to avoid letting you down. Yeah, you guessed it, I am writing yet another “Mr. Smarty Pants” article on social media. This time it is about some of the very good reasons for not hiring a social media consultant. Without further delay, I want to introduce Mr. John Lunchbucket of Faxaway Copier Repair to explain some reasons his company didn’t hire a social media consultant.

Number 1 - Obscure Market Audience

“We fix copiers. It would be pretty boring to blog, tweet, and Facebook about that, don’t you think? I doubt anybody could make our business more fun or engaging.”

If that is the attitude you take, Mr Lunchbucket, you are right. You should probably carefully avoid social media. Come to think of it, you may do well to stop marketing your business completely. You wouldn’t want to bore people like the copier repair company in this video:

This is such a fun blog post to write, because I am going to tell you how the “big dogs” in social media marketing get paid. I hear it all of the time, and many of my peers say they hear it, too … “so how do you make money with social media?”
Please note that this relates to social media marketing consultants who earn their living by helping clients with marketing their products or services better with social media. There are many branches to the field of social media, such as bloggers who earn money as writers and blog owners. [...]

What is the value of social media marketing and social networking to a business? This seems to be a very misunderstood subject, and one which too many companies tend to relate to other marketing efforts or advertising. If you really do not see the enormous value of social media marketing today, then it is likely because you are either going about it wrong or you are not embracing it at all. It is time that we change that for you and help you to see what this social media thing is all about.
Business Social Networking ROI
I hesitate to use the [...]

Social networking has been analyzed, scrutinized, bastardized, and commercialized, but my family is proof that it works, and that it has worked for over a decade. If you will give me a moment, I will tell you why I am blogging about this today, and give inspirational credit to people I met and have built deep relationships with that have lasted for over a decade and growing, and those whom I only recently met. I will start with today, and I will go back to the really good stuff when I met Peggy.
 
A little while ago, I sent a tweet [...]