Brands are designed to connect with people in direct and meaningful ways. The experience of connecting is among the most powerful ways your business can start a long-term relationship with people. Social media, on the other hand, is made to create indirect experiences.

Why rely on the weaker animal? Try as you might, you cannot dictate which social media tools your audience will use. Sure, you can guess that facebook and twitter might be among them, but who’s to say that your interaction on those platforms will reap the rewards you seek?

I shudder just a little when I read that social media provides a new level of interaction between a business and its customers. Why? Because it doesn’t – Well, perhaps it does sometimes, but by and large the value of the interaction has degraded to gutter churn. The feedback companies receive via social media channels is weaker and arguably less accurate than anything they received before social media existed. Turning that weaker feedback into valuable data can easily be likened to polishing a turd.

Before social media, you could get a consensus of valuable opinions and relevant feedback by surveying actual customers on a daily basis — in fact, it provided a great opportunity to have a real conversation, but now with social media, similar feedback is garbled at best and wildly inaccurate at its worst. Now, instead of surveying actual customers, companies are taking in opinions not only from customers, but also from non-customers, competitors, planted reviews, opinionated people with too much time on their hands, people with superiority complexes, and even people who would never in a million years buy their product.

When you use inaccurate data to fuel your branding and marketing efforts, you net a wasted budget and meager results. It undermines your confidence to boot. When you can rely on real, accurate information, you can enter into your marketing with greater confidence, stay true to your brand, and expect a higher ROI for your efforts.

The biggest difference between social media and real marketing

Social media gives companies another way to procrastinate from real marketing. Social media profiles are not nearly as powerful as your brand. They consistently lack the critical types of interaction that form strong brands. With branding, we create a real, truthful dialog about you and your business, then you bring it to life when people experience the true essence of your brand.

With social media, people often create an image, which is really little more than a forgery of who you are. Companies hire consultants to create their profiles, which are frequently not true to their core characteristics. The question is not, “How can you try to relate to facebook users?” The real question is, “Which part of our brand is relevant for the channel?” I read some profiles and wonder who do they think they’re fooling? And why? Social media is supposed to be about creating a real dialog, not an image, a fake, a forgery. Fake elements undermine your brand instead of enhancing it.

Brand elements are designed to create a meaningful experience. Social media is designed to create online (indirect) interaction. A meaningful brand experience is more successful in creating a hot prospect, or in essence, in connecting with real people. Experience is real, and nothing can replace it.

To read about how to create social media profiles that are consistent with your brand, check out: 5 Steps to branding your social media profiles.

Unless you’ve lived under a heavy rock for the last few years, you probably know that social media is now considered an essential part of a marketing plan. You may have a thorough understanding of social media, or you may be a little confused by how to incorporate it into your marketing without wasting enormous amounts of time. After all, you already have a full-time job and managing several social media profiles can feel like a babysitting gig. If you ever get confused by thinking of social media as part of your brand, here’s some good news: Social media is not part of your brand.

While social media can be a part of your marketing, it’s not part of your brand. About the only way that social media relates to your branding is brand reputation, and that’s easy to take care of. Just be nice, and tactfully defend your brand if someone attacks it. If you’re floating tweets out there, keep them relevant.

If you think of social media as an essential part of your brand, think again. Social media is networking, it’s marketing, it’s a series of interactive directories, but it’s not part of your brand. You can’t set up a few social media profiles and accurately claim you have created a key component of your brand. Why? Because in and of themselves, social media profiles are not you, and they do not replace experience with you. In fact, social media profiles are a weaker tool than virtually any key component of your brand.

And get this – when you set up social media profiles on a plethora of sites, then promote your profile on those sites, you are actually building those sites’ brands more than your own. You’re in effect saying, ‘Hey, come spend your time on this other site,’ rather than ferreting people to your next relevant brand touch point.

Does social media have a place in your marketing? Sure it does. For most businesses, that place is called networking. Use social media to boost your online presence, and social networking sites like Biznik (a particularly good social networking site) to network. It’s an exceptional site for business networking — but it is not a key component of your brand. If you’re selling something which can be purchased online, use social media to build awareness and community.

Let’s illustrate the point

Your company is on LinkedIn, facebook, and twitter. Familiarity with the channels is high, and the channels gain instant recognition. People leave your articles, profiles and website to go visit a social media channel, where they get distracted by a facebook virtual gift or a post by a friend. LinkedIn, facebook, and twitter gain more familiarity while you gain less time and net only one indirect interaction.

Sometimes people start strong relationships on LinkedIn, facebook, or even twitter, but it’s rare compared to them finding you in a more meaningful way such as meeting you, organic search results, or a compelling, truthful ad that speaks to their real needs.

A more direct scenario is better

Your website is real, truthful, and relevant, so people naturally find you on an organic search. They read your site, and they call or order. They remember you because your service rocks and your brand is strong. Simple and to the point interactions win, hands down.

If you’re worried about how your social media will effect your brand, set it and forget it. Create your profiles, keep them true to your brand, protect your brand reputation by being kind, and tactfully defend yourself if someone hits you below the belt. Beyond that, monitor your social media usage time, and make sure to spend more time on high ROI marketing methods.

To read about how to create social media profiles that are consistent with your brand, check out: 5 Steps to branding your social media profiles.