I'm a Social Media Curmudgeon!

I’ve been called to task by Max Chafkin of Inc. Magazine because I got a little snarky about his magazine’s praise for Twitter.

I’ve been dissed for preferring to meet my clients and prospects face to face instead of via technological hook-up.

And most recently, an SEO advocate emailed me wondering if I thought SEO wasn’t an important part of a comprehensive marketing strategy because I got a little snarky about SEO advocates in my newsletter.

I fought it.

“I’m no social media hater,” I told myself.

I’ve been building web sites for over 10 years. I’ve been blogging since 2005. I have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, PingFM and goodness knows where else.

I couldn’t possibly be all that curmudgeonly. Right?

I was in denial.

The first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem, right? So here’s my problem: I don’t see social media as a marketing strategy. I see it as a tactic.

Underlying all revenues are human relationships.

Social media advocates point out that social media is all about relationships; that it’s transforming their very nature and blurring the boundaries between entrepreneurs and their organizations.

True enough.

But when we focus on media and technology at the expense of authentic human connections, our relationships suffer.

And so do our revenues.

If putting human issues above the technology that’s driving them so fast and so hard makes me a curmudgeon, so be it.

And that’s practical marketing.