Remember the old joke about the dotcom company that lost money on every transaction, but decided to make it up in volume? This post is not about them. When we talk to organizations that have tried social media programs and have been disappointed with the results, we can usually track it down to one of a few problems. Most of the time that problem is content.

Organizations who create YouTube channels, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, and then talk at their audiences without providing good content are bound to fail. But many organizations refuse to produce or provide great content via social media. Here are the three reasons I hear most often and why I disagree with them.

1. It costs too much (in time or money) to make good content.I had the opportunity to present with an executive of a major communications company this week. We talked to a crowd eager to learn about social media. One of the points we stressed is that organizations are shifting budget from broadcast and print media to the online world. Think about the hundreds of dollars you spent on that print ad, or the thousands on those radio spots or the tens of thousands on the television campaign. I can promise you, for less time and money you could be writing great white papers, producing educational videos or developing awesome iPad apps. And remember consumers have voted: they use TiVo and satellite radio and they ask to be taken off mailing lists. At the same time, the use of search, online advertising and social media to find products keeps growing. If you’re willing to invest a a great TV commercial and pay to have it shown to a consumer, why would you not pay to produce a great educational piece and give it away?

2. My content is valuable, giving it away cheapens the value. The best things in life are free, right? I think we would all agree that Google is a really valuable service. Does Google charge you a nickel every time you search? Would you value the service more if Google did charge you? What about the business value of Facebook?How much do you pay for membership? Online loan calculators? Weather forecasts? All these tools have real value- and all are free to consumers. Done right, nothing shows value (or generates revenue) like a free service.

3. My competitors will steal this off my website. Your competitors will fall into three categories. The first are really busy and really successful and even if they had the time to steal your information, they already have their own niche they are focusing on. The second are those that have the time to spare and will ask an entry-level marketing assistant to download all your data. This person will download all of your information and put it on a folder on their network. The information will then sit unread until that person moves to another job, at which point the IT department will delete it. The third are really good at competitive intelligence and will use crawlers and tools and data that will give them information about your company, products, service, pricing, clients and employees, and won’t bother downloading your content because they get the good stuff elsewhere. I can go buy a brand name watch, or engine or even hot wings. But having access to those products doesn’t enable me to make a great watch, engine or hot wings. What you do is complicated and hard, otherwise you wouldn’t be in business. Someone reading about your services or demoing your products can’t mimic what you do by simply reading a white paper.

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