I’ve been inspired to write this post after reading Naomi Dunford ^[1]’s : How We Killed Social Media ^[2], in particular, this line:

“We added shit to the wine and then wondered why the wine tasted like shit.”

Basically, Naomi is saying that too many people, having heard the buzz words Social Media, are jumping in with no real understanding of what it is, and creating a ton of Web junk.

And she’s right. By adding content to social media sites, that is not useful to anyone but the person submitting it (like press releases, landing pages etc.), people are not only ruining the various social media sites, but also spoiling the Web for the rest of us too.

Should your business be involved in social media?

If your answer is: “Hmmm, I don’t know,” then no, you are not ready to be involved in social media.

If you do want to be involved with social media, then do it well.

The Internet is a resource we want to be able to rely on. We want to share in what it has to offer, so if you can’t offer up anything that is newsworthy ^[3], educational ^[4], silly funny ^[5], creative ^[6], unique ^[7], has a different perspective ^[8] or is a brilliant resource ^[9]- don’t offer anything at all.

This post is not about telling you how to do it right, because there are many excellent articles out there already; written by people who are more involved in, and acquainted with, social media than I am, so bookmark the sites, learn as much as you can, and only then take the leap in.

These people are heavily involved with social media. If you want to learn, grab their RSS feeds:

Tamar Weinberg ^[10] ( Feed ^[11])

Maki ^[12] ( Feed ^[13])

Muhammad Saleem ^[14] ( Feed ^[15])

Reg Saddler ^[16] (aka Zaibatsu ^[17])

Andrew Sorcini ^[18] (aka Mr. Babyman ^[19])

Listen to The Drill Down ^[20]

Take a look at the Social Media ^[21] page on Alltop ^[22]

While it is worth your while getting to know these people, you better be doing it for the right reasons – that is, to learn from them.Don’t bombard them with requests to submit your work unless it’s truly worthy; in which case, they’ll probably Digg, Stumble, or Sphinn it anyway. There is a reason that they are the influencer’s; they only add good stuff to the Web.