The “It” here being social net­work­ing, aka the Social Web. I often talk to clients who tell me, “Peo­ple say I have to get on Face­book and Twit­ter,” or what­ever hap­pens to be the social media du jour.

They’ve been put under the impres­sion that these strange tools are the key to online suc­cess with their busi­ness, but they’re still scratch­ing their heads won­der­ing why any­one inter­ested in their busi­ness cares about what they ate for break­fast that morn­ing. Nev­er­the­less, there’s an impulse to rush out and sign up to every­thing they can. But something’s askew.