Everyone wants to help you develop a Social Media strategy. Marketers are publishing “Free Guides on How to Gain Followers” and “How to Use Facebook to Make a Million Dollars”. WTF?!

On any given weekday, I watch my inbox fill up with articles, blog posts, and PDFs on the topic of  Social Media Marketing. At this point my shit filter is set to super. Sure, I’ve written a bunch of stuff to help clients figure out the basics of navigating through the online social-sphere as well as general best practices and online etiquette, but when it comes to actual advising, recommendations, and strategy, I can’t just hand someone a 30pg doc and expect them to “get it”.

The whole point of social media is that its me and you. you and them. them and us. In real life, you can’t see Pepsi walking down the street, walk up to him and say, “Hey Pepsi, how you doing?” But on Facebook or Twitter, you can. Social Media is kind of like an alternate universe for brands. They come to life online, they’re in our worlds, and they’re essentially people, just like everyone else (at least this is what a brand can hope to be). Your Social Media and real-life landscapes are constantly changing, updating, growing, moving, being happy and being sad…

With both humans and brands in Social Media:

1. You can’t force people to be friends with you, like you, think you’re cute, or sleep with you.
2. Some people will think you’re the best thing that ever happened to them, but others will always be in doubt of you, because you weren’t planned.
3. You were really popular at your first school, but now that you’re attending this one, you’re eating lunch alone.
4. You change your image to fit into the scene. You do stuff because other people think its cool, and you want them to think you’re just as awesome.
5. You finally meet your soul mate and come to a level of communication that lets you spend countless hours in bed chatting about the wonders of the world.

If only #5 was true for everyone.

“BUY THIS! It’s a 100% Guarantee that you will find love!”– Dating services have been saying this for years, and now some emerging Social Media Marketers and strategists are promising the same thing.

But wait – Aren’t you one of those people Almitra?

NO. I’m not one of those marketers that devise generic lesson plans and scam people into buying my “services”. I am an actual user and participant of Social Media and am subjected to just as many annoying friend requests and advertisements as you and your mom are, so I totally understand. My goal is to make those obnoxious ads go away and turn them into something you wouldn’t mind having a beer or watching a movie with.

The way I strive to do this is by using my imagination to visualize a brand as a person. Like people, brands have traits. Knowing these traits, you can start to mold a personality; think “the girl next door”, “the tech-loving indie rocker”, “the home-making soccer mom”, “the exotic mystery woman”, and so on and so on. This is not saying that any one brand/person has to be stereotyped into one of these labels, this just helps to humanize brands and companies a little bit more. Doing this will also help you figure out the type of people who you’d probably ‘mesh well’ with, which will in turn, just like in real life, will help you make friends. No one wants to talk to a pre-programmed droid; it’s a waste of time.

Moving along, one thing you may have heard from all these marketers that actually is true and very important is that:

“social media is about creating conversations, interactions, and engagement.”

And you can’t successfully do that if you’re uncomfortable around your audience. You can’t participate in the dialogue unless you know what they’re talking about. People won’t want to talk to you unless they think you’ve got something in common. And this, my friends, is what being social is all about. As is life, the art of socializing is not something you can learn from a book. You must get out there and DO!