The Purpose of Social Media Sites

Creating an online presence is no small feat. It takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears (not to mention countless late nights and a diet of coke and doritos!) to build your site, generate content, drive traffic and develop a base of raving fans.

Social media can play a significant role in making this happen. Having an active, engaging presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, LinkedIn, Pinterest and YouTube are essential if you want your name or brand to be in the public eye.

But I think some people and businesses have missed the point when it comes to using social media.

If I were to ask you why you use Facebook or Twitter for your business, what would you say?

Is it about sharing your latest products, services or promotions?

Is it to acquire as many fans and followers as possible?

Are you attempting to build a strong sense of community amongst your followers?

Do you want to make your social pages a destination that people come back to again and again?

Or are you just trying to stay with the times and its the only way you know how?

Believe it or not, all of these justifiable reasons for using social media. Yes, even “trying to be cool” has its merits. But if you don’t have a couple other goals in mind you may be missing out on the real reasons to use social sites.

In my opinion, the best reasons are:

1) To enhance your brand

and

2) To drive traffic to your own website

There’s nothing wrong with developing an attractive Facebook page designed to attract fans. In fact, I highly recommend professional design for all brands and businesses.

There’s nothing improper or unhealthy about engaging with your Google + audience so that a long discussion thread ensues.

And it falls within the realm of best practices to respond to all tweets from prospects and customers in a timely manner. Customers appreciate interacting with you in a way that is simple and easy.

Whether you are answering a question about a product, having a dialogue with a customer about their experience or sharing your excitement about something new that your company is introducing, all of these go towards establishing and solidifying your brand in the marketplace.

But if you aren’t moving your prospect or customer towards your own website, you are missing out on a key opportunity.

How many times has Facebook changed their features and terms of service in the past few years? Too many too count?

How schizophrenic have the social sites become in attempting to nurture social engagement and interactivity all the while attempting to figure out how to monetize their users?

As a result, how secure should you feel that the business you build on another site’s platform will be there for you next month or next year?

I’m not trying to be Chicken Little and claim that the sky is falling. It isn’t.

But I will say this. If you aren’t leveraging the social sites with an end goal of driving traffic to your own website, you aren’t building your business. You are building theirs.

That’s why you will never see me post more than a paragraph or two of my work on Facebook. I want you to come to THIS blog to read and comment.

Due to the 140-character restriction, Twitter leaves little room to do anything other than send people to your site. But it’s amazing how many businesses don’t leverage even this obvious feature.

I believe it’s important to have an ongoing conversation with your readers. And I want my fans to share my products, services and content using the social sites. But I will always prefer that people leaves comments on my own blog and interact with me here, in my own “house”, where I have the ability to exert complete control.

What happens when a social site changes their functionality or terms or service? Worse yet, what if they go out of business or sell out? Ask Friendster, Orkut, Digg and MySpace.

So do all the things you have learned to do to increase your followers, fan and circles. But never forget that your fans are not fully yours if you depend on the social sites as your primary source of connection. As I like to say, anything can happen and it usually will.

What are your thoughts on this? Please leave your comments, insights, criticism or a funny joke in the form below.