“Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows” – Sun Tzu
Do enough research about social media and you’ll find contradictions. For every purist who tells you to engage in the conversation there’s another whose telling you to target and get results. Then some think the roof will cave in.
In the end, they’re all right. The reason: there’s a difference between Social Media and Social Media Marketing. And for that matter, Social Media Advertising
Social Media is the interaction between users who utilize online tools. Social Media Marketing is engaging in business relations and sales with the use of social media tools such as Facebook, blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn…
What this shows is that Social Media tools can be like water, they take the shape of their container. The only part of social media that cannot adapt to its container is the name, “social media.”
To put it in a concept, saying a social media tool can only do “marketing” or only do “advertising” is like saying a pencil can only be used to write questions.
Does that make sense?