I added it up. I now spend an average of 32 hours a week online, mostly after hours (thus the bloodshot eyes) and mostly in my own self-made school of learning from the social media gurus who kindly share so much great information at no cost. I eat it up. And yet, with almost every blog post I devour or podcast I listen to, I am constantly intimidated by all that I don’t know.  Compared to Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Mitch Joel, and CC Chapman (just to name a few) I am in social media pre-school.

But that’s OK. Because I still share their greatest power – and so do you. It’s the understanding that truthfulness, transparency and sincerity work. That’s really it. They know it, they preach it, and they’re creating some of the greatest business success stories in history with it.

How we ever went so far away from truth in marketing and advertising, I’ll never know. But with 28 years in the business I have to admit I’ve probably donated to the dark side. In fact, I can clearly recall conversations with clients over the years where transparency was considered too risky and, besides, did we really need to be sincere when we had (insert celebrity name here) doing our next commercial?

No more.

Thanks to too much media, too much razzle-dazzle, and too much abuse of consumer trust, those days are long gone. We’ve come full circle back to a wonderful place that is the nucleus of social media’s marketing power.

So next time you feel overwhelmed by all you’re hearing, reading and seeing about social media, don’t fall into the insecurity trap of “I don’t know code so I’ll never understand Social Media”. Go to your gut. Think of a world that does business by sharing the truth. Use that as your foundation for learning. Everything else will fall into place.