Is Social Media a Fad? 2009 Retrospective

I am still finding many small business owners that are not using Social media at all or ineffectively at best.

On 1 February 2017 I gave a presentation on “Social Media for Business,” to the Professional Florists Association of New South Wales, Valentine’s Day Demonstration Dinner.

As I am want to do when I speak to a specific business sector, I perused their website, found committee members listed and then searched for websites and social media platforms for those businesses.

Their use of social media was, for the most part, not so good.

I gave what I believe was a practical and interactive discussion of how best to use various social platforms in their businesses and videoed a 2 part beBee “Live Buzz” video of the flower arrangements demonstration for Valentine’s Day. (This was done with my smart phone on the hop and so as not to divert you from this article now, I will place the 2 links in the Comments section below) Read on…

Rewind to October 2009

I got serious about social media in late 2008, after signing up for Facebook an LinkedIn in August of that year and Twitter in September. This was due to the persistence of a number of students from my Import Export Courses held at a number of community colleges in Sydney, Australia.

Just after I signed up for Twitter, my wife Sandie and I spent a month in Italy and a Mediterranean cruise and when we arrived back in Sydney I had forgotten all about LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Just after Christmas 2008 I had received a few emails from of the internet marketers from the USA that I had bought courses from, saying in effect, that Twitter could be the next big thing as a marketing tool.

I revisited the googled articles that I had copied into word documents and saved to my computer on how to use these social platforms for BUSINESS.

So on 29 December 2008, I found an internet course on using Twitter for business for about US$20-30, downloaded the PDFs and videos and started implementing some of the strategies. (That is another article)

About the 12th of January 2009 I became a business matchmaker on Twitter (no money made) between a blogger in Romania and a copywriter in Israel for a copy-writing assignment

That was my “AHA” Moment.

Having been involved in the International Trade and Transport Industry for 40 years as a Licensed Customs Broker, Freight Forwarder and Industry Trainer, I saw the potential, NO, the vision of networking globally with social media in various formats.

Five months later I resigned my position as a contracted TradeStart Export Adviser at The Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Why?

Because I could see that for small business, social media could be the means of leveling the playing field with more cost effective marketing strategies. And I wanted to help them achieve that.

I teamed up with a few other business owners becoming an evangelist for social media and spoke at various meetings and business breakfasts, promoted by using Twitter in particular.

Many in those various meetings made the comment,

“Social Media is just a FAD.”

An Interview with Steve Brossman

31 October 2009 a group of us got together to be interviewed by Steve Brossman AKA “The Authority Catalyst” from the Social Marketing Channel and in my interview, towards the end, Steve asked me about social media being a fad.

Here is that Interview:

Social Media Networking - Steve Brossman with Lance Scoular - 31 October 2009

Run time 6:57min

So how about you?

You might think Social Media is still just a fad from a business point of view.

OR

You might think it is past the fad stage but not relevant to your business success.

Fast Forward to 2016

Veteran American television and radio host Larry King interviews Gary Vaynerchuk who dramatically grew the family business WineLibrary, using YouTube, Twitter and Facebook and now runs VaynerMedia, a social-first digital agency.

Larry asks Gary,

“How do we use social media to help our business?”

Gary responds:

“Well I think we first understand that,

Social Media is a slang term for the current state of the Internet.

And when your position social media that way you take it a lot more seriously.

So Step 1 Larry, for 97% percent of the people that are watching, is to actually take it serious. That’s No 1.

No 2?...

Well I’ll let you watch and listen for yourself:

Gary Vaynerchuk Interview With Larry King | 2016

Run Time 24:41min

If you still think social media is not for your business check out my beBee article:

10 Reasons Social Media Won’t Work For Your Small Business

eBee "Live Buzz" Videos:

Valentines Day Demonstration
Professional Florists Association of New South Wales - Valentines Day Demonstration at the Croydon Park Club
https://www.bebee.com/content/1189850/1088211

Valentines Day Demonstration 2
Professional Florists Association of New South Wales Valentines Day Demonstration
https://www.bebee.com/content/1189858/1088217

What do you think?

What’s your experience?

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