Social media is part of your Internet marketing business toolbox. It takes work and effort. Stop with the excuses.

If anyone tells you that you can do social media for your business without time and effort, they are lying to you. Now you can be more effective at what you do; but it still requires work and effort.

One of the things that I see as I train a lot of businesses is that there are some who really work the social media plan and others who don’t. It makes me think of the line that the student gave to the teacher…”The dog ate my homework”.

This will not be a popular message, but it will be a necessary message. I can show you all the tricks of the social media trade, but if you are not going to put the time in to master the craft, you are wasting your time. You might as well hire someone to do it for you and pretend to be you. If you do, that’s one hell of a sword to fall on.

Your social media needs to be you, especially when you are communicating with others. When people are talking to you, they want to actually be talking to you; not someone pretending to be you.

But if you put to practice what you have learned from others, the good news is this; it will get easier as you get smarter and more used to using the tools for social media.

So if you are going to learn and use social media, stop making excuses. Put in the time and effort it takes to become really effective at Internet marketing. In the end you will be glad you did.

I know social media works and that it brings visibility, new contacts and opportunity. I just hate seeing people waste their time and effort by only dabbling in social media. Give social media your all and you will reap the results you want.