At a July 4th family gathering yesterday, my father-in-law was talking about his job (which he is very passionate about).  He’s been with a chemical company for years and even though he turns 70 this year, he’s not slowing down or thinking of retiring.  The topic of social media came up and he said that he’s got someone at work looking into Facebook and Twitter and how they can use it to generate more sales.  My brother-in-law pointed out that tools such as the ones he mentioned are better classified as communication tools, not sales tools.  Good point. Just because you’re on Facebook and Twitter doesn’t mean your company’s sales are going to increase.  In fact, if that’s all you’re doing is pushing your company’s products or services, your followers and friends will get sick of you really fast and you may lose them.  The point that we tried to get across (and I think this was a fantastic example of someone hearing all the hype about social media but not really understanding its purpose) was that these tools are meant more to start and enhance conversations with people who may be interested at some point in buying from you.  But it’s not going to happen overnight and it’s certainly not going to happen just because you have a presence on those sites.  Just shows how far we all have to go yet with educating people.