Businesses and the Social Media Trap

Businesses and the Social Media Trap – WebWorkerDaily.

“Which social network is best for business?” When I was asked this question last week, I was stumped. Not because a plethora of possibilities rushed to mind, but because this is the wrong question for a business to be asking, and it took me a moment to work out where to begin explaining that.

This question isn’t uncommon, though. Along with queries like, “How can I use Facebook for business?”, it reflects the growing desire of businesses to rectify past false starts with social media, and harness the possibilities they offer for branding and promotion.

What Business Assumes About Social Media

The question “Which social network is best for business?” assumes a lot of points about social networking, including:

• that every business must use social networking tools
• that there is a single social network that will allow a business to reach the largest possible number of audience members
• that any business’s social networking requirements can be met by a single social network

And that’s just for starters! To me, it also seems to imply that the business wants to tick the social networking box without actually committing to the realities of the medium, or its potential outcomes.

Continues @http://webworkerdaily.com/2010/03/23/businesses-and-the-social-media-trap

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