What are social networks for?

Social networks are not channels for advertisers or for the adverts/memes you, your clients or any of your so-called “influentials” create, social networks are for all of the people who participate in the network.

Love this sentiment from Herd. This short article really captures what social networks are about and what they aren’t.  It speaks to those who market and those who don’t.  In essence the network is about what value you add and what others can pull out of that network.

Twitter makes a fine example. Many businesses jump into Twitter, beginning with a stream of tweets about their products. Each tweet is a mini-advertisement.  No reply tweets to be found. Not one comment on the already existing conversation and questions people have about those products. A decided lack of value.

Speaking with two local entrepreneurs yesterdays, I received mixed reactions to this point of view.  The first one indicated maybe it’d be better to stay under the radar or just push out links to their website.

This same person decried the ignorance of customers. He saw little value in actually getting customers over Twitter. Explaining to him about how he could move customers his way by being an educator over a seller was tough. He didn’t see the point in bothering.

The second gentleman, a florist with special services, immediately made the leap from seeing Twitter as another billboard to thinking of it as a conversation search engine. WOW! A total novice to Twitter and Facebook and woosh, he slid into home base in just minutes. I’m expecting him to really succeed at growing his business via the Internet.

What are social networks for? That’s up to you ultimately. Bring your best.