The social media dis­claimer start-ups should know

I get asked a lot: “How do I make money off social media?” Uhmm, well, you use the magic wand of online web awe­some­ness, obvi­ously. Or maybe not. We have all read a mil­lion arti­cles point­ing us toward tools we should be using, things we should be con­sid­er­ing, and the best prac­tices we shouldn’t ignore. We get it: Social media is valu­able. I think by now we all under­stand the impor­tance of social media as a vis­i­bil­ity engine and viral mes­sage maker. It can be used to enable con­ver­sa­tions, announce infor­ma­tion, put out fires, and so on.

It can do a lot. But it has lim­its. Ohhh buzz kill.

The real­ity of a start-up culture

Hav­ing lived in both Los Ange­les and now Seat­tle, I have been sur­rounded with start-ups. In fact, it was a huge push for my loca­tion deci­sions in gen­eral. Start-ups face unique chal­lenges, espe­cially right now. No sur­prise there.

Start-ups also have a ton of options. They really are enter­ing with a clean slate most of the time and, often, a huge num­ber of resources. They have investors, boards, friends, fam­ily, old col­leagues, old net­works, etc., all push­ing for them and offer­ing a help­ing hand. So when it comes to decid­ing where they want to invest their energy and call in those favors, it can get tricky.

Becom­ing overly invested in so many dif­fer­ent places (i.e., part­ner­ships, com­mu­ni­ties, com­mit­ments, etc.) can be detri­men­tal to the growth of a start up. From expe­ri­ence I can say that I have seen start-ups jump on this lovely, brightly-colored social media band­wagon and regret the time they lost in doing so. A lot of the expe­ri­enced con­sul­tants out there would say it all comes down to the approach you take, and I agree to a degree. I think start-ups should see social media in a dif­fer­ent light than larger com­pa­nies or estab­lished corporations.

Big­ger com­pany = more resources

Larger com­pa­nies can afford to test longer, they can drop more resources into gain­ing insight into which com­mu­ni­ties would be best to infil­trate and how much time they invest in those con­ver­sa­tions. In a sense, larger com­pa­nies can afford to be less lean. It’s not a great approach, but as we all nav­i­gate this fairly young space, it is a prac­ti­cal one. Larger com­pa­nies can take a blog­ger or con­tent edi­tor and ask them to dance in the social media space a bit before decid­ing to hire a full-time strate­gist. They can also take the time to inter­view a few agen­cies and see what they offer and at what price. The process can take longer but with that it can even­tu­ally reap some seri­ous rewards if imple­mented correctly.

Start-ups have very few resources avail­able that are expend­able, espe­cially when it comes to tech resources and the num­ber of hours in a day. Start-ups should look at social media and not just jump in ask­ing “how can it help us?” but instead ask, “do I need it right now?” I think some­times start-ups can be blinded by the lat­est hot thing and for­get to pri­or­i­tize as needed.

For exam­ple, let’s say a start-up gets their blog up and run­ning. What would be more ben­e­fi­cial: to jump on a num­ber of sites, build out pro­files, and start engag­ing, or get some qual­ity con­tent cre­ated first?  Exactly. You need the con­tent first to drive them back to. Sim­i­larly, let’s say you per­suade your CEO to get on a few of these sites and start engag­ing. Should his/her first goal be to pimp out your brand and ser­vices via social media, or should he focus on mak­ing sure your com­pany is well rep­re­sented on the Web? What are your organic list­ings for the com­pany? Have you signed up with sites like KnowEm and col­lected all of your real estate out there?

My point is, when it comes to start-ups, don’t jump the gun with every new option out there. Too often the excite­ment of a new initiative’s poten­tial can drive us off track. Instead, it’s impor­tant to really lay down a con­crete foun­da­tion for a start-up’s brand, pub­lic face, and net­work. Only after you start see­ing organic suc­cess from these efforts would I ever sug­gest putting in tech time, brain­storm­ing time, and PR time into a social media plan.

Return­ing to cen­ter in 2010

I think we will see a lot more of this “return-to-center” when it comes to social media mar­ket­ing in 2010. Now that the flashi­ness is wear­ing off and we all agree it’s a tool that is here to stay, I think com­pa­nies will demon­strate more restraint in its use. At least I hope so. In the ongo­ing debate of “does social media fit every com­pany?,” I fall on the side of yes, but I fall there with a dis­claimer. I believe that at cer­tain times, when used in cer­tain ways, it can be very effec­tive. In my opin­ion, start-ups par­tic­u­larly should take note of that disclaimer.

What do you guys think? With social media as a free resource should it find its way into a start-ups bag of tricks? Or do you think with it still being some­what dif­fi­cult to keep up with and quan­tify, should it be some­thing they tackle later in the process of growth? I’d love to hear where you come down on this.Joanna Lord is a social mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant and founder of Your­Job­Stop, the job resources board. See her busi­ness pro­file, con­tact Joanna or leave a com­ment below.