My Top Reasons to Love or Hate Social Media

1. Small businesses with big ideas and small marketing budgets can become thought leaders and big businesses.
2. I can research my book topic and my ancestry, in my slippers and bathrobe, on blogs, websites, chat rooms, and discussion groups.
3. I can round out a photo slideshow gift by collecting photos of events I missed by downloading them from my ‘Friends’ Facebook Pages.
4. I can read ebooks, watch webinars, read blogs to get smart on what happened in digital marketing while I was off changing diapers.
5. I can Skype my young nieces and nephew and see their Halloween costumes, real time, and my niece studying in Cyprus can give me a virtual tour of her apartment.
6. I can utilize LinkedIn and online alumni career services to drive a job search and candidate search without stepping foot in a career center.
7. My friend can launch a Twitter smear campaign against the luxury hotel that gave a lame response to his room break-in.
8. Communities to make businesses and the world a better place can be created by making connections between people who are 1,000 miles away or 100 yards away but who may never otherwise connect.
9. A granny in Fargo can become an overnight social media sensation without having the time to bother with Twitter, Facebook and all that other “crap.”
10. Arab Spring. Enough said.

1. That the woman at the table next to me in the restaurant (on the rare occasion I get out for a peaceful dinner) can only get off her phone long enough to send texts.
2. That bullies can shove my friend’s son in the high school bathroom, take his picture and send it viral through texts and Facebook.
3. That my husband won’t change his Facebook setting to stop getting emails with every Facebook update he receives, and that he reports them to me each day.
4. That a message’s tone is open to wide interpretation.
5. That big talkers with little minds can look important in the blogosphere (but they eventually get ratted out).
6. That Facebook keeps changing how we have to set our privacy settings.
7. That our culture is accepting that social media tools are adequate replacements for face-to-face social interaction.
8. That not only do I have to monitor my children’s time on Xbox, TV, the Internet, iPods and iPads, I should also be policing their chats, Facebook accounts, email, Minecraft allies and something new tomorrow.
9. That I never feel caught up.
10. That Google knows way too much about me.

What did I leave out?

Language 101

What I am discovering is that the majority of small, established businesses in my corner of the world are entering the blogosphere out of necessity, but rather reluctantly.  These are intelligent, creative, entrepreneurs whose successes are a result of nurturing an idea with painstaking care, endless energy and calculated risks.  Entering the social media arena, however, fills them with dread.

The main stumbling block for most, is that we were not raised in social media, like the following generation whose social lives are a cornucopia of Facebook, Twitter, smart phone apps, texting, IM'ing, chat rooms, Skype, YouTube, and online multi-player video games.  Not to mention their online academic world of homework submissions, online tests, course selections, school applications and simulations.

Cinque Terre, Manarola, Italy

So let's approach it like learning a new language - a language that is essential for business survival in the modern world.  The beauty of the social media "language" is that we don't have to travel to a new land to immerse ourselves in it.  We can also choose our immersion pace - wade in carefully up to our ankles; dive in head-first; or choose an approach anywhere in between. For cautious waders like me - leveraging my existing business knowledge and my personal social media world - setting up a blog and blogging has been a great introduction to the "language."  Simultaneously absorbing information by following blogs and dabbling in the business side of Facebook and Twitter prepares me for the next language lesson on using social media to create visibility, engage others and grow my business.

Like learning a language, you acquire new words, then accumulate enough words to form sentences.  The tenses begin to make sense and you find yourself able to speak, then converse.  The more you use it, the better you get.

Now to find the time!  It is an investment in your business.  It is important to make the time or ask for help.  Your fluency will improve with time and you may even ask yourself why you didn't dive in earlier!

Ciao!