Fear Of Social Media

Fear of Social Media: An Exercise For Dealing With Strangers

The web is full of strangers – a whole world-wide-web of them. I don’t blame anyone for being a little nervous. But even with all of the talk of privacy violations these days, social media participation (yes, even Facebook) is on a steady upward trend. It’s still important for businesses to get on board.

If just thinking of putting your information online where strangers can see it causes your stomach to do flip-flops, I’m hoping this exercise might help calm your nerves. For this little mental experiment, let’s just assume your primary concern is building your business presence on a professional network like LinkedIn.

Professional social media profiles as virtual event booths

When you show up to an event dressed for success with roller-bags full of marketing materials, aren’t you hoping for a sea of unfamiliar faces? We attend these events hoping to find people who have never heard of us so that we can wow them with our amazing value propositions. But somehow, the idea of strangers seeing us on the internet is still a little frightening.

What do event booths and LinkedIn have in common?

1. A Self-Selected Audience

At an event, you can look forward to meeting a room full of strangers interested in a common industry or service. Your presence there tells them that you’re relevant to that topic and gives them their first reason to be interested in visiting your booth. The strangers landing on your LinkedIn profile are also visiting your profile for a reason. They may have searched for a set of keywords that appear in your profile. They may be a close connection through one of your colleagues or friends looking for someone they can trust. (And don’t forget, you can choose how much or how little complete strangers get to see by altering your settings.)

2. Your marketing materials

Your table, like your online professional profile, is empty without basic marketing materials clearly stating your value. Hopefully you’ve brought along fun give-aways or a contest or demo for your visitors. You’ve prepared these specifically for strangers’ eyes. You can offer all of these things on your social profiles as well, but these elements alone do not a successful event booth make…

3. YOU

This is the scariest part – but the most important. An actual person needs to stand at the booth and talk to the strangers who pass by. Visitors need to be engaged – human to human. Imagine someone at a booth repeating a memorized marketing script and nothing else? Would you stop to listen? We understand engaging as humans at event booths. It’s silly to think otherwise. But it’s somehow scary to imagine engaging as humans on social networking sites with total strangers.

“Name the devil and he will flee”

Do we even know why we’re afraid? Maybe it would be a good idea to sit down for a few minutes and let the actual questions surface: What will they find out about me? What will they say to me? Will they try to take advantage of me? Will they shame me in some way? Do I really know my stuff? Will they think I’m not qualified? What other questions come out for you? Write them down. Post them in the comments section below so we can all learn.

Now put yourself back in the event booth. You are in a professional environment. You know how to conduct yourself at a professional event. You dress appropriately. You have your materials prepared. You’re a nice person and know how to engage in professional conversations. If someone asks about your background, you can give as much or as little information as you please. You’re not planning on talking about your love life at the event booth. You’re not planning on talking about your political or religious beliefs. Why would you? It’s a work event and you are a pro.

It’s important to decide whether fear or business acumen will win the day. Ultimately, you do have control over what you post and how you shape your online presence. But as David Meerman Scott declared today on his blog: “I Do Not Friend Logos.” We don’t add marketing pamphlets to our contact lists. We add people.

Fear of Social Media: Beyond The Usual Objections

I’ve been living in a social media ghetto. I’ve officially consumed the kool-aid and I love it. I started my consulting business like the over-zealous religious convert ready to save me some souls. I wanted to work with small businesses in Los Angeles and OC – to show them all of the cool, nearly free things they can do with social media to increase awareness and give the big box stores a run for their money. But then I discovered the deep-set fear so many have of the social web. I wasn’t ready for it.

Many of my favorite blogs have great advice, especially for the corporate world. One of my favorite blogs published an article today, Top 5 Social Media Myths Debunked. Instead of calling them myths or fears, many social media bloggers call them “objections” and deal with them in a very matter-of-fact tone. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I want to have a different conversation altogether. Objections are different from fear. Objections are based in logic and good business sense. A good sales person can answer with logic from great lists of come-backs if she’s done her homework. An objection is something like, “But I can’t measure ROI.” I can answer that. But when it comes to social media, I don’t see objections as often as I see true fear. In those moments, it’s not about come-backs or lists of answers. It’s about putting myself into that person’s shoes, slowing down and listening.

I’ve decided to dedicate a good deal of time writing about this fear over the coming weeks. For many people, anything else I babble about will mean nothing if this isn’t addressed first. The fact that someone with a fear of of social media is even making an appointment with me is a ray of light – a sign that it’s worth dealing with on a deeper level. So I’m going to address the fear of social media as best I can from the perspective of the small business owner, the sole proprietor, the minister, whoever can gain the world by embracing social media, but fears losing his soul.

Be sure to subscribe to see some new perspectives on these topics:

Fear of the people outside of your business circle finding their way in – Can the idea of the world wide web seeing you suddenly cause paralysis? Is every single person we’ve ever known now going to find their way to your virtual door? Why is that scary?
Fear of misrepresenting yourself by making a social media faux pas – Even after getting a run-down on best practices and learning to use social networks, does it feel like visiting another country? Does it feel like being in a totally different culture speaking another language and you’re not sure if you asked for black coffee or a roll of toilet paper?
Fear of losing control of who sees you – Is just knowing that total strangers could be out there looking at your business profiles causing distress? What drives this fear of being discovered online? How is it different from someone seeing your ad on a billboard or discovering your flier?
Fear of people saying bad things about you or your products – Over-analyzed, yes. But even with all of the great resources, case studies and hard proof that social media can turn the biggest complainers into the biggest fans, people are still frightened of this. It’s probably still a top reason why some small and even mid-sized companies won’t dip their toe in the water.
Fear of wasting your time because no one will care what you do online – If your industry is not represented in social media, does that mean none of your prospective clients would ever use it to find you? Is the true nature of this fear that you’re afraid you’ll have a party and no one will come?

Have you or has anyone you know experienced this kind of social media paralysis? Let me know if I’m missing anything.