The Social Executive: How to Master Social Media and Why its Good for Business

CHAPTER 2 Six damaging myths about social media

So why, given the compelling data on the business value of social media, are executives missing in action? Because they are anchored to damaging myths about social media that are holding them back. And here are six of them.

1. Social media is a fad.
2. Social media is for posting photos of what you ate for lunch.
3. Social media is for code monkeys.
4. Social media is for people under 25.
5. Social media is for marketing.
6. There’s no ROI on social media.

The eruption of social media seemed to happen so fast and was so visibly associated with teen geekery that an inaccurate but influential narrative took hold.

What springs to mind when someone mentions Facebook? Distraction, time-wasting, cyberbullying, Millennials? It’s rarely ‘global customer growth strategy’, ‘targeted advertising’ or ‘real-time customer support’. LinkedIn? Isn’t that the place where people post their CVs? Not really.

However, these myths are pervasive and have generated an anti-social mindset. Here are some of the truths behind them.

Myth #1: Social media is a fad

It’s hard to raise ‘social media’ at an executive event without at least a handful of people dismissing it as a wasteful fad. Of all the myths, this is probably the most strongly held. It is also wrong.

For example, LinkedIn, the professional social networking site, was founded in 2002. LinkedIn now has 260 million users in more than 200 countries and is available in 20 different languages for people to network, ...