With all the hype about social media, it is easy to focus too much time, energy and money on something that doesn’t pay off.   While shutting out these tools completely may not make sense either a new article on Entrepreneur.com does a good job of exploring the balance.  In a piece entitled Is it time for you to get Anti-Social, authorDavid Port looks at companies which have effectively unplugged.

My favorite quotes from the article:

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. At the end of the day, there has to be a business case for what you do.

  • Aaron Sylvan, who runs TrustWorks, a social networking software developer said:

Small companies in particular often make the mistake of “not choosing the right [social media] tool for the job.  They try to be involved in all these different things and end up not being able to stay on top of any of them. Instead, figure out one or two tools to best reach your target audience, and stick with them.”

As I read through the entire article, the author is not really suggesting a strategy of completely unplugging, but selective participation. Instead, carefully consider which networks really fit your business model.   If like most small business owners you  lack the bandwidth, or resources,  to regularly participate in social networks consider blogging to round out your participation..  the author leaves you with this thought: “One tweet a week won’t cut it, but one blog post a week might.”

What is your social media strategy?