The punch line I'm going to deliver in this post may surprise you.
As a preamble, I'll state the obvious: Social Media is shaping the way companies conduct day to day operations, the way they communicate with their suppliers and vendors, the manner in which they receive feedback and respond to consumer complaints, etc. Social Media is the new normal for B2B communication and company-to-client interface. As a consequence, #sm is dealing segments of the advertising industry fits as companies and entrepreneurs experience broach reach and exposure via this (virtually) free marketing platform.
Now listen carefully:
Put your hands up and slowly back away from the Blackberry. Time to "unplug."
No, I'm not suggesting you quit Facebook or Linkedin or whatever social channel you're hip to, quite the contrary; successful social media initiatives are not unlike SERP (Search Engine Page Ranking) in that your return on investment is built over time and in the aggregate, so once you commit, you have to stay the course and do the work on a daily basis.
Yet everywhere I look I see people ignoring the very lifeblood of any successful career or organization: physical networking, Harvey Mackay style. I'm talking about wearing your shoe leather and getting in front of people.
At the end of the day, human relationships are best served by human interaction, not tweets, posts, texts and e-mails.
