photo by fotologic 

There are a lot of people actively using Social Media, but there are still many, many, many more that aren’t and they don’t really understand the whole thing. 

The biggest issue that I hear over and over again?

“Who has the time for all of this stuff?” – generally followed closely by the observation that they are currently getting swamped by email, phone calls and all sorts of other time killers.

There are two issues at work here – the first one is that a lot of people need a better handle on time management (check out 3 ways to create more time).  The second issue is that people really don’t see the benefit to Social Media – by many it’s still viewed as the province of kids and online marketers (not necessarily exclusive groups…) 

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  photo by respres 

Twitter - it’s everywhere. 

Ashton racing CNN to get to 1,000,000 followers.  Oprah’s on, along with lots of other celebrities.  Growth for twitter the last year has been 2565%.  It’s even being used successfully for business – here’s a great Forbes article on a CEO that’s using it for her business.

The number of twitter profiles is now over 18 Million.  I think it’s safe to say that twitter has hit a tipping point.

But if you’re like most people that I know, the first question is ‘What is Twitter?’ followed closely by ‘What is the big deal and why should I care?’.

The reality is that if and when you go out and try twitter, you are extremely likely to shake your head, look confused and shut your computer off in disgust trying to figure out what all the noise could possibly be about.

One of the secrets about twitter that’s not obvious is that www.twitter.com actually sucks right now when it comes to using twitter – that’s what most new users try to use and justifiably walk away frustrated and overwhelmed in a very short time.

Twitter’s not for everyone, but read on and see if some background and suggestions on what everything means and tips on how to use it might help change your perspective.

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The business world is buzzing with questions about Social Media Marketing these days.  Whether they’re trying to figure out what do to now that they’re on LinkedIn or Facebook, or what exactly is Twitter and how would I use it for my business or ‘how do you find time to do all this Social Media stuff?’, there’s a lot of talking going on.

I was lucky enough to present last week at the Central Exchange to a sold out room on How to Use Social Media for your Business.  We only had an hour, so it was basically just scratching the surface but the discussions I’ve been hearing and having about the topic over the last couple of months have been fascinating.

Opinions are a lot like…well let’s just say that everyone has one.  What’s great about Social Media is that a lot of people feel very strongly about it, in both directions!  Everything from “It’s the best thing ever!”  to “What a waste of time – who cares what I had for breakfast!”.  The reality is somewhere in the middle – used the right way, Social Media Marketing can be a big benefit to small business owners, a great cost-effective way to generate leads, drive traffic to your website and make your customers happy.

Anyway, I thought I would share a list of 9 things about Social Media and Business that I’ve heard recently that are just bogus – let me know what you think.

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I’m a big proponent of Social Media – to me it’s pretty clear that it is the wave of the future that will eventually knock down old-school sales and marketing techniques.  In a world of active Social Media, you can’t hide from your customers or prospects – people will say what they think and the best way to generate positive feedback is to deliver quality and value (and isn’t that really the point anyway).

Blogs, professional social media sites and Youtube all have a fairly clear place in an online marketing and Social Media strategy.

However I will admit that to this point I’ve been stumped on how to really view the value of Twitter. 

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