Is social media worth your time?

I was talking with two speakers last week about social media strategies and I thought you might find this interesting.

One is deep into the process of creating 30 short videos to accompany 30 short blog posts, all of which will be released over time. This will “feed” her blog readers and her Twitter followers, and it will also enhance her positioning in the search engines, as both the blog entries and the videos (hosted on YouTube) will be indexed. In turn, this fresh content will also position her as a greater authority or expert on her topic.

Is it worth it?

The other speaker I spoke to has decided it’s not — for her.

“I don’t have to time to create these little tidbits of content,” she said. “I’m going for the bigger projects.”

Is one right and the other wrong?

I don’t think so.

I think your social media strategy is up to you, because the same strategy is not appropriate for every speaker.

Would any speaker benefit from an improved presence in the search engines and better positioning as the expert in their field? It might seem that the answer is an easy “yes.” But it all depends on a speaker’s business goals and objectives.

If you don’t care about getting business from the search engines, then don’t spend your time there. If your target audience isn’t judging your authority based on what they find online, then don’t spend your precious time in a place where they aren’t. Figure out where they are and invest there.

What is the real message here? Why am I writing this? Simply to say that this “to do social media or to not do social media” issue is not so black-and-white.

Figure out what’s right for you and stick with it. You don’t have to follow the crowd.

Please share your experience: Is social media worth your time?