Social Media is growing like the plague and it’s here for the long term.
It is permeating almost everything we do and see and buy and use. We know this:

• People want to participate in everything.
• They want to frame the discussion.
• They don’t want to be talked to. They want to be part of the discussion.
• They want to have input on the structure and construction of the products and services they buy.
• Recommendations from other users are more valuable than clever buying messages.

The notion that monetization, measurements of effectiveness and ROI are to be abandoned in the Social Media world is a foolish argument. It’s the same kind of nonsense that permeated the dot.com world and led to its meltdown. In the years leading to the dot com crash, the “experts” were saying that monetization was an obsolete concept. It was ancient economics made irrelevant by modern technology. In hindsight, intelligent venture capitalists lost their sanity and threw millions of dollars at ideas that would never earn a nickel. That message was crap back then. It still is.

Ask yourself these questions:

• How would you use Twitter if every Tweet and Retweet you sent cost $1, or $5?
• How would you use Facebook if it cost $200 to set up your Facebook page and every posting cost you $2?
• How would you write blog posts if it cost everyone who read your posts $1 per post?
• What is it about “free” content that makes so many people waste so much time?
• Why does a “free” platform seduce people into believing that it’s wrong to have a financial purpose for what they do?

We’ll be talking more about this. And providing some answers. Stay tuned.

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