Why do so many of your consumers – real people – play in the social media sandbox?
It’s not to share your crap.
It’s not to receive your promotional announcements.
It’s to connect with each other.
In other words, it’s about them, not you. You’re just lucky if all this connecting happens in the presence of your brand. Indeed, that’s the whole point.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have stuff to share (and “stuff to share” does not mean stuff unworthy of sharing that happens to have a “share” button next to it).
It doesn’t mean that promoting your wares is an illegitimate use of social media (obviously, people who connect with you want to hear from you).
It means that it’s less important for your brand to have Twitter and Facebook and a blog than it is to have a reason for people to connect with each other in your presence.
The horse belongs before the cart.