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This post was inspired by Jill Whalen. She mentioned recently that she was waiting for the blog post “How Social Media Killed My Business” so here it is just for you Jill…

One upon a time, I used to have a thriving online business. I mean I was seriously kicking ass. The money was rolling in every minute of the day. I could do what I wanted when I wanted and didn’t have a care in the world. My life was totally amazing. It was way better than anyone else’s I know and everyone was jealous of me. I had it made!

I had a ton of websites and all of them were constantly bringing in a boat load of traffic and sales every day. My business was running like a well oiled super duper awesome machine. My system was flawless and I had it mastered. I was at the point where all I had to do was write up some content each morning and build some backlinks each evening. The rest of the time I did whatever the hell I wanted and the money just poured in.

But then something happened. My life slowly started falling apart. My business was fading away. I couldn’t control it. There was nothing I could do. It was a habit; no it was an addiction that I couldn’t kick. I didn’t even know it was taking hold of me until it was too late. My online business was ruined, gone forever.

I was told there was no help for what I had. It couldn’t be cured. But what was it? Nobody really knew for sure.

It was just something called…

Social Media!

Looking back it all seemed so innocent and fun. I got a Myspace account when I was in college. Then, Facebook started getting popular so I had to have both. Next, Twitter popped up. Somewhere along the way I also joined Linkedin, Youtube, Digg, Delicious, Mixx, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Hi5, Friendster, Blogcatalog, Mybloglog, and so many more. I can’t even remember them all.

All I know is that I HAD to be on them. I even told myself at first that all these social sites were helping my business and I was really working when I was on them. First it was weekly, then daily, then hourly, and finally every second of every day now.

There is no way out! And more keep popping up all the time. Google+ is my newest craving, desire, addiction. I think about it constantly. This must be insanity!

Now, my business is long gone and I haven’t had a real face-to-face conversation with anyone since I don’t know when. My social media accounts are all I have now. I wake up to them and I can’t sleep at night because of them. They keep me going at all times. I couldn’t exist without Facebook and the others.

So, that is the short story of how social media killed my business. Ok actually I just started typing and made the whole thing up in the past few minutes. However, now that I am done writing, I can see that it really does have some truth to it. Damn you social media, damn you!

There are several misconceptions about social media marketing that a lot of people believe. These “social media” sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, SnapChat, TikTok, Instagram, and many others can be very powerful online marketing tools if they are used correctly. However, because of some common myths associated with them a lot of internet marketers never give this marketing method a chance.

In this post, I will discuss 3 of the more common myths and debunk them for you.

1) It’s too Time Consuming

This one can easily be debunked because it’s only as time consuming as you make it. The initial set up of your social media accounts and building a following on each of them can take a while. But after that you shouldn’t need to spend any more than an hour per day on your social media marketing for it to be effective and successful. If you divide it into fifteen minute segments throughout the day, you’ll barely even notice the time you are spending on it. It’s easy to get sucked into being on there longer and if you let that happen it will be too time consuming, but with a little self control you will be fine.

2) My Target Audience Isn’t on Social Sites

Unless you are targeting a super crazy out of this world niche, there’s a very good chance your target market is using social sites. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter combined have BILLIONS of users, and are growing every day. And that’s only three of the main social media websites. There are several others with millions upon millions of users on each of them. I would say it’s pretty safe to assume that just about every demographic is represented on social media sites. Don’t assume your target audience isn’t using these sites just because they fall into a certain category.

3) Social Media Marketing is Difficult

Using these sites is about the easiest thing you can do online as they are designed to be very user friendly and simple to use. Learning to use them effectively for marketing is a little trickier but it’s still not extremely difficult to do. It can certainly be worth the time and effort for you to learn how to use social media as an internet marketing tool.

To sum it up, social media sites are typically very easy to use without taking up a lot of your time, and it’s almost guaranteed that you can find your target market on them. You should take some time to learn how to use social media marketing for your online business because it can be very effective!

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