The Five and Dime

The hype and the reality of social media

(Please note: this article is really written for the small business. For our larger clients, you may find it interesting, but there really is a different strategy for larger companies dealing with social media. Contact me and we can talk about those ideas.)

Everywhere you turn, it seems like people are telling business owners that they have to be working with social media. The latest buzz is all about Twitter and “tweeting”.

As a marketing person, I have a keen interest in anything that helps promote my customers’ business (or my business, too.) But with all of the hype, all of the articles, and all of the news, I have yet to see many concrete examples on how a typical small business can use social media such as Twitter as a marketing tool.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-social media. I just believe that there is quite a bit of hype and less substance when dealing with social media. There’s simply a lot of businesses that really can’t take advantage of Twitter and Facebook (other than placing ads on Facebook.)

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