Contrary to popular belief, social media is not FREE. Depending on your goals, your strategy and your available resources, social media could actually be quite costly. Without a proper strategy and crisis management plan, it could be extremely costly. In spite of that, most still refer to social media as something free. This creates a certain way of thinking where business owners do things they normally wouldn’t.
Think objectively, as a business owner, about someone advising you on or managing your public facing brand persona; would you want someone who does this all day, everyday as a career? Or do you want to just dump this accountability onto someone at random? Some companies choose to dump the responsibility of social media onto “someone young” because they “get it.”
Would that same business do that with accounting; and if it did, would it expect the books to be correct?
Would that same business trust all marketing initiatives to someone in that way; and if it did, would it honestly expect results?
Free is good.
Free is good for samples. Free is good for water. Free is good for iPhone apps.
Free is not good.
Free is not good for companies that want to take their social media efforts seriously.
You get what you pay for, what are you paying for your social media success?