By Doug Stephens
1. If your brand sucked before Facebook, it will suck on Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg can’t make your brand fascinating if it’s not. No one can. In fact, if your brand is boring, social media will only amplify that. So what to do? Well, fortunately you can make your business worthy of attention but it means going back to the very genome of your brand and asking a simple question; “what do we give the world that it can’t get elsewhere and why should anyone give a damn?”. If you can’t answer this question, you have a problem that social media can’t fix. If you can answer the question, there is hope. Read on.
2. Business will never get less social than it is right now
Anyone anticipating that at some point everyone’s just going to get sick of all this connectedness and unplug for good, is deceiving themselves. This is only the beginning. Social networking will continue to further embed itself in every aspect of our lives and bring new brand/consumer dynamics we can’t even currently comprehend. And privacy? Privacy is just a commodity we trade for value (real or perceived). Are we right to be concerned about privacy? Certainly we are, but it won’t force us back in time and it absolutely won’t force us offline. We can’t un-see the future and there’s no going back on social. It’s here to stay.
3. If you have to hard-sell your boss on the value of social media, find a new place to work
Honestly, if – with Twitter being a part of almost every newscast, the Facebook logo on every TV ad and department stores merchandising clothes according to what’s popular on Pinterest – you’re still having to stand on your head to get your boss excited about social media, you’re working in the wrong place. If they don’t get it by now, they simply won’t…ever. Go work somewhere that actually gets social, likes it and wants to do it. Your old company probably won’t be around much longer anyway. Run don’t walk.
4. There is no such thing as a social media campaign
Do you campaign to get your spouse to love you? Of course not. You do little things each day – nice things – interesting things. You listen, share and give… everyday. It’s not always fun. Sometimes it feels like work but you do it, because it’s rewarding and gratifying over time! It’s mutually fulfilling. In other words, you commit over the long haul. And this is precisely why so many brands are disappointed with social marketing. They don’t commit to the day-in-day-out work it takes to build relationships. They believe that one crafty video, contest or podcast and the ROI will just start pouring in. It doesn’t work that way. In fact, for all your hard work, the only ROI you may ever get is that your brand might still be relevant five years from now. But that’s worth something too right?
5. The world doesn’t need another Facebook page
…or Twitter feed, or Pinterest account or any other social media fodder. But it does need content infused with ideas, stories and beliefs that are moving, entertaining, enlightening and artful. Don’t start a social media account unless 
you want to (and are capable) of giving these things – even in some small way – to the world. This does not mean you have to be YouTube’s answer to James Cameron – just that you have a position and a voice, and that you can express both with a degree of skill. Trust me, someone out there will like you…they might even love you.
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