Pretty often I see comments like this… and I won’t link to it because I saw it referring to a friend of mine but it could of been referring to something I said myself.

“Not sure your audience understood what you were trying to tell them about social media.”

I run into this a lot myself, and have been “brewing” some thoughts and I’d love your feedback. I’m pretty lucky to have a “rear view mirror” of five years that maybe gives me a little perspective.

One thing that’s a definite is that people are comfortable in the constructs they’re in. That’s understandable and okay.  Even in the online space, people who come from radio think the internet is radio; people from print focus on text; people from television sometimes think it’s all about video.

But it’s not TV. It’s not radio. It’s not print. It’s it’s own thing.

Social Media has it’s own norms and caveats, if not rules. After all, there are strong suggestions but few “rules” in other media channels as well.  If you treat Social media with the respect you do the rest of online, print, TV, etc. as a channel then you’re already on the right path.

A teacher of mine said, everything is about fundamentals. Let’s start with a fundamental.

Social Media Is About Giving to Get.  In Short, the Bullhorn Is Broken.

Many who first wade into social media make some pretty big mistakes early on. And those mistakes almost always revolve around the same theme – that one promotes themselves at the expense of a readers’ or viewer’s attention (inspired by Seth Godin).

No one wants to be sold, but they love to buy.  Really excellent sales people have known this for decades. Posting on a forum or blog is under no circumstances a cold call nor should be an ad; it’s about giving value that’s relevant to the audience… because your audience is constantly asking, “How does this relate to/help me?”

It’s not necessarily about how big your audience is, but are you talking to the right people, and are you engaging them.

This is the first post in a new Fundamentals series.