Don’t let social media bleed you dry

All the hulabaloo surrounding Matt Bacak’s press release, talk about defining the ROI of social media and posts about how self-promotion is social media taboo got me thinking that we social media types have the potential to be a pretty dysfunctional bunch.

I’m first in line for the codependent award. I’m very uncomfortable selling myself. I’d love to twitter with you fine folks all day long. I’d happily spend the coming months blogging, networking and throwing snowballs on Facebook. But that’s not going to pay my mortgage.

Beth Harte wrote a great post about whether social media is scalable that elicited dozens of comments. The conversation reveals that social media reverts to traditional marketing when the audience gets too big to handle. After all, there are only 24 hours in a day and no one can spend three of them responding to blog comments.

So, done well, social media will build a following. But no one will ever benefit from your expertise if you don’t offer to help them. For money. It’s OK.

Be generous. Build community. Promote others.

Just don’t let the culture of social media prevent you from making a living.

Photo credit: rickz via Flickr