Social Media & Bartering!

Social Media is a big deal in our society...wow is it ever! Monetizing although widely discussed takes some time to master online. In the meantime, how do you monetize something when there are those individuals who say, "Oh yeah Facebook is Free"? It is difficult to get some people to understand that there is more to internet marketing and advertising than Facebook. It is been publicized that over 600 million people are now on Facebook alone not counting all the other social media applications. That is mammoth! I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg ever imagined this. Sometimes I think the social media does dominate some business owners time.

So the question is how do you leverage social media? Doing-it-yourself on social media can take hours out of one's day. And mastering it can take the business owner away from his daily routine. Leveraging Social Media requires expertise. I always say, "Hire a professional to build to create and manage your social media marketing campaigns.

I have found another way to leverage Social Media!! Bartering! Yes, that ancient art of bartering. I produced a social media campaign for a friend's local business, and because his social media campaign was so successful he referred to another friend of his. Trust me "Word of Mouth" still works!!

The day I showed up to present the contract for our social media management services, which he readily accepted; I was offered a free hair style! I thought wow I must be hearing him wrong!

Is he offering me something for my services other than cash? In addition to being paid for my social media management services part of the contract is free hair services! Now I heard of many deals, but this was my ah-ha moment. Social Media is a lot of things, but the added benefit of old fashioned bartering takes it to a whole new level! After a minute of deep contemplation I accepted his generous offer.

It has been stated that derivatives were created by Wall Street to keep the "powers that be" unaware of the schemes the bankers were creating that eventually cost investors and homeowners their shirts and homes.

I often wonder are we all apart of another set of derivatives referred to as Social Media. The Congressman Anthony Weiner Twitter incidents as well as other publicized stories both good and bad have dominated mainstream 24 hours news cycles. Social Media is breaking stories that television news and newspapers used to in the past. Terms such as "gotcha journalism" have been replaced with "tweets" which have in some cases provided breaking news, such as Michael Jackson's death.

Only time will determine if this new derivative the geniuses in our society have once again created will; enhance our civilization or further dumb down the masses.

Excuse me, I better make my hair appointment for Tuesday, meanwhile bartering is still accepted around the world and by my local hair stylist!