Social Media Lessons from Facebook

It’s been a week since Facebook had their IPO.

Billions of bucks.

Millions of people talking about what went wrong.

Thousands of people wondering if Facebook will go belly-up.

If you want the latest news, just Google it.

I see the big lesson is none of the “brilliant minds” have figured out the true value of Social Media and how to capitalize on these giant networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Pinterest and yes, Facebook.

YouTube, (owned by Google) has figured some of it out.

The value is not really measured in Billions, Millions or even Thousands.

Maybe hundreds.

The value is in the relationships and most people have less than 1000 connections on their social media networks.  Those of us that have more than 1000 are not having meaningful two-way relationships with all of those 1000+.

The reason people are using Social Media is not to be sold stuff.  It is to converse, share, learn, and explore.

We do buy and sell stuff do to social media, but 90% of the time, it’s not the advertisements, it’s the relationships.

I bought my lunch from a hot dog vendor Wednesday due to the recommendations of friends on Twitter.  This is word of mouth communication utilizing social media as a conversation agent.

I’ve seen countless similar activities that resulted in buying and selling using real dollars due to social media.

The “brilliant minds” haven’t pick up on this yet.  They want to put a price tag on a share of stock in Facebook in the same manner they put a price tag on a share of stock in any other business.  The problem is this whole social media stuff isn’t just any other business.

I don’t know the answer.

But I do recognize that those who are trying to place a value on Social Media are not using the right measuring sticks yet.