Imagine Facebook, Twitter and all social channels have disappeared. Poof. They’re gone. That mindset would go a long ways in helping marketers develop social media strategies that achieve objectives that move the business forward.

Social Media Marketing Is About Action

Social media marketing isn’t about media at all. It’s about behavior—either amplifying it, encouraging it or making it spread. The reason marketers use social media platforms for marketers should be driven by the desire to influence consumer behavior in one direction or another.

That behavior might be sharing a brand or service with a colleague, discovering your brand’s content over someone else’s, contributing thoughts or ideas to make the business better and so on. All of these behaviors exist in the offline world. Social media’s potential is amplifying the reach these behaviors can have and the speed in which they reach others.

A Facebook Liker means nothing. Another follower on Twitter is worth $0.00. One more YouTube view does nothing for the business. It’s the behavior that these channels can drive that has business benefits.

Don’t Be Driven by Platforms

A social media marketer’s job isn’t to establish a brand’s presence across multiple online properties. Anyone can do that. The job of social media marketing is the same as any other marketing channel—affect consumer behavior. Our job is to tell the brand’s story to the people who will care about it through the right channels. Platforms don’t affect behavior.