Lies About Social Media I've Believed

I get the feeling that a lot of people believe the secret to their future success in life is rooted in getting involved with social media. Whether it is for a business or just a person, too many times people think they just need to start a blog, use Twitter, get on Facebook, put pictures on Flickr, connect with people on LinkedIn (…and the list goes on), then they’ll have it made.

There are a lot of lies that are spoken and unspoken when it comes to beginning to use and connect with social media. And sadly there are plenty of lies that I’ve believed for a time. Sometimes these lies drive us to use Twitter or start a blog, but soon enough reality will set in and more often than not, these people slowly disengage. Here are some lies about social media I’ve believed:

Your blog will land you a job. There are probably a few thousand people out of many, many million who could get a job because of the name they’ve built on these social networks or through their blog. But guess what? You aren’t one of those people. Your blog may help (or hurt) you get an interview for a job, but you will never, ever get a job because you have a great blog.
You will get a bunch of new best friends. I’ve made a lot of meaningful friendships through this blog and other social networks, but far too often introverts get onto Twitter looking for a new connection only to find out that not everyone else is looking for the exact same thing. This isn’t to say you can’t make friends, but until the friendship moves to a face to face connection, it will only be so deep. Call me traditional but I still believe deep friendship happens face to face.
People care about my stats. There’s always someone who has more followers or subscribers so there really is no reason to think you’ve arrived. Some people think it is crazy how many people read my blog (couple hundred a day), but I know many who would say that is ridiculously low. In the end though, I don’t think people care about how many followers you have, they care about how you treat them as a person.
It’s easy. This is the worst lie of all. Talk to a lot of “experts” on social media and you will get the perception that having success within social media is really pretty easy. You do this and then you do that and then VIOLA, you’ve hit the big time. To truly connect with people or to build a decent readership of a blog takes A LOT of time, effort, and energy. Not just for one month, but always. It takes a consistent drive to be creative and to desire to connect with real people, not just be a content robot.

What lies about social media have you believed?