Face Your Fear of Social Media: Just Do It!

If you’re of a certain age (if anybody asks, I’m 39.99), you may be having a hard time keeping up with all this Web 2.0 stuff. For our kids and younger colleagues, it’s not intimidating – it’s second nature. But for those of us who somehow managed to grow up without an iPod, cell phone or Facebook page, the prolific interactive media platforms out there may seem overwhelming. Figuring it all out is hard enough, but what if you make a mistake? It’ll be hanging around out there for everyone to see! Scary.

Like it or not, online networking is a valuable tool in small business marketing, so be brave. The best way to face your fear of – and understand – social marketing is to just take the plunge.

Don’t Just Sit There

Lots of well-meaning Internet marketing gurus recommend warming up to online networking by observing what others do – reading and commenting in blogs and forums and getting a feel for what it’s all about. This is good advice, but don’t waste precious weeks and months procrastinating – er, researching. You’ll learn a lot more a lot faster by doing it yourself. Start a blog. Go ahead. No one will be reading right away, anyway.

Want to know what twitter is all about? Just sign up and start. You won’t really understand Facebook either until you create a page and start interacting. Just stay focused. Before long, you’ll be having so much fun sharing and interacting, you may forget  that you started this whole thing to promote your business.

For the clearest explanation of Web 2.0 I’ve seen yet, and a series of demystifying posts, check out PRstore owner Justin Spring’s blog. You do us proud, Justin!

When it comes to online networking, shove that fear aside and just do it. You’ll be glad you did!