Every day someone asks me about social media. Whether it’s a question about Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare or the dozens of other sites and applications being used to manage social media activities, businesses are looking for help figuring it all out. So, I regularly use my Twitter account to share links to resources that will teach them about the various tools and tactics others are using.
With an overwhelming myriad of resources, people eventually ask me for the silver bullet. They want to know the one secret weapon that’s more powerful and important than any of the others.
The most powerful tool to harness the power of social media isn’t a Twitter application like Mixero that searches and organize the Twitterverse, or Hootsuite that measures the impact of your Tweets. It’s not an eye-popping Facebook app. It’s not a PR tool like PitchEngine that distributes your press releases to the ends of the Web or a monitoring service like SM2 that will search that same expanse to find every mention of your brand.
In social media, your brand isn’t your logo, it’s a personality. As you develop your strategy, selecting the right tools, tactics and platforms are important. But if you are the magic behind your brand, success will only happen when those tools are just a vehicle to help people meet you, learn about you, build respect for you and eventually not even consider doing business with anyone else.
Your secret weapon for social media success is still YOU.
Social media and its shiny tools are new, but the truth of great sales and marketing is as old as the hills. All other things being equal, people will do business with people they like. And by “like,” I don’t mean just clicking a button on a Facebook page.
