We Don't Care

We don't care about your half-off day. We don't care about your name the widget contest. We don't care that your food is delicious or that by acting now we can win a free iPod.

We use social media to talk to friends, see their pictures, and play games. We use it to waste time at work. We use it when we're sitting in a train, a bus, a plane, and yes, even when we're driving.

We use social media when we're bored. We use it to stalk that cute girl that we're afraid to talk to.

We don't use it to shop or find your products or hear about your offers. So stop telling us.

Businesses are having a hard time breaking their old habits. In the days of interruption advertising, posting more images, slogans, and references to your product worked. It work on radio, it worked on TV, it works on billboards. In my opinion, it doesn't work on social media.

Now the psychologists may say that I'm wrong. They may argue that even if I'm not consciously viewing the ads, my sub-conscience is picking them up and making me want a whopper.

And if you're a big major brand, I might even say to you hey, spend money on your immersion marketing and advertising campaigns on Facebook.

However, if you're the local barber, or plumber, or locksmith, I might say think before you invest in spamming social media.

Now look, there are some really great ways of building your businesses reputation through social media. However, it's not by mass auto posting your prices, services, discounts, offers, etc. What it is about is engaging your customers. Having profiles and pages for your business is a great idea. But it's how you use these profiles where the train typically runs off the tracks.

So how do you do that? My recommendation is to think of ways to provide incentives to your customers for participating with your social media profiles and pages. Maybe you offer discounts for tweeting. Perhaps you give them service credits for writing a review. This is how social media works.

Gyi Tsakalakis helps lawyers build their reputations online.