Social Media Cannot Be Monetized?

Written by Sheree Motiska on Mar 30, 2009 11:47 pm

Well, it's about time I posted something here and I appologize for my lack of contribution. I actually really enjoy this community and can't wait to really dive in and connect with many of you.

Lately, I have found Twitter to be a place of great inspiration for me. What I am experiencing is the value in having the ability to use blog posts, videos, or podcasts in order to provide my own opinion or an answer to issued or questions as they are asked on Twitter.

I see plenty of discussion starters and questions in the timeline of the people I follow, but I also have a few search terms that I am "fluent" in constantly flowing into my Tweet Deck.

If only Yahoo Answers had a desktop Api like Tweet Deck or Twhirl, then it would be completely amazing.

Anyway, a topic came up today that had a fellow Twit arguing with me and retweeting stuff I didn't say as my stuff (not on purpose, he just didn't know what a retweet was.

His topic of debate was "I just don't believe that social media can be monetized, and it's ALL ABOUT "making money.""

Well, I told him a couple of things:

Personally, I didn't make squat until I discovered, through social media, my own unique voice.
IMHO, social media shouldn't be directly monetized unless you already have a well-known brand before you begin. For example, if you're Mashable or Problogger, it's probably ok to put ads wherever you see fit. Otherwise, save the ads for your own blog at the most, not My Space bullitens and Tweets.
Social media (again, this is my opinion and I will never claim to have the "only answer," I just share what has brought my own success), shouldn't be about "making money." Now, that doesn't mean that social media marketing cannot lead to making extremely good money. All it means is that, once you stop focusing on "making money,' you will find that people will trust you, see you as a source of useful information, and will be far more likely to click through to your links (blog, product, newsletter, network marketing opportunity, etc.) where you DO have your content monetized.

So, this is going to be my next blog post I think. Either that or a post about quanity vs. quality in terms of your social media presence and connections.

So, what I want to know is this: