Photo credit: Carlos Porto on Flickr

… everything looks like a nail.

When you are good at something, you tend to look at all the problems via that angle. This is important for you to know as this is how you will be looking at problems. This is also important for you to know when you listen to experts as this is how they are looking at the problems.

This is all the more important when it comes to way we use social media.

Take LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and even blogs – there are a variety of ways of using these tools to contribute, increase your capacity and/or make a difference.

Every tool will have experts who know how to make the most out of these tools. Some of these experts go so deep on these tools that they will look at every problem as something that can be solved via THAT tool. These experts are also popular in THEIR community which seems to validate that whatever they are doing is WORKING.

So, what should you do?

Here is one suggestion:

Take the best of what the experts are suggesting that you do but PLEASE apply the advice to your context. Your specific case may require some change to the strategy or may warrant a TOTALLY different strategy.

They may have a hammer but you may not be a nail 🙂