Saw a post today on one of the blogs I read where the reader had this idea he was going to offer to manage social media for small to medium size businesses by outsourcing it in India or Malaysia.

He indicated a busy businessman would pay $20 month to have their Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo or Bebo account updated, messages replied and so on and this would be way cheaper than hiring a new employee in-house or contracting independent U.S workers.

Sounds reasonable right? Well I guess it is if you want a surefire way to go out of business quickly in this new day and age. Look…haven’t we had enough experience with what a bad idea this greed driven approach is yet?

The notion you can use ‘canned’ conversations, get rich quick schemes, famous quotes, and other non relevant chatter to build real relationships with customers in the ‘socialsphere’ is just plain gimmick and lazy approach thinking to try and capture consumers. People are way too smart for this!

Today’s consumer not only can read right through this type of hype and pitch…they will absolutely loathe you for it.

Am I saying having a 3^rd party service your social media marketing is a bad thing? Absolutely not! In fact, it can be a brilliant action on your part and certainly position your business probably faster and more effectively than you can on your own.

What I am saying here is don’t think you can be lazy or half stepping this stuff.  The work necessary to provide targeted and relevant content that is sincere and meaningful on behalf of your business rather than a bunch of noise, will and should rest on your shoulders. That means you have to be willing as well as sincerely committed to doing the work it takes to successfully engage with your customers and potential clients in the online social scene. It should be placed as a priority right up there with the other things you are doing to grow your business.

In my experience working with clients it saddens me to see many are not willing nor do they see the importance of truly committing to adding Social Marketing into their everyday marketing mix and strategies. And don’t think that I’m finding this with just small business. The folks over at Social Times posted an article on this very thing… 50% of Companies Entering Social Media Have Plan. Their take on a couple of recent reports on this topic revealed even large corporations are not investing their time, money and efforts to create meaningful strategies and plans in order to ensure their company is emotionally connecting with their target markets. Many think you can rest on your brand, just ‘show up’ or put on a charade to appear you are in the trenches with 21st century marketing and they are in with the customer.

Not true! Today’s new business era will no longer support or tolerate status quo mindsets and approaches. Just like having an offline relationship takes lots of personal investment, so it is with online. No free rides for marketers. No free rides for business. People do not care about your brand like you think they do. This is the age of the great awaking for anyone in business. Integrity, intent, motives and transparency are the tell-tell signs of what a business really wants from and with a customer.

What about you? Does your business have a plan, well defined strategies for incorporating Social Media into your marketing and business processes? If not, would you if you knew how to get started? Let me hear from you what you feel you need in order to transport your business into the 21^st century way of doing business.

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