There are umpteen numbers of social networks out there to choose from. There are the obvious big ones, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace but once you start searching around, you soon realise there are many other, smaller and more focused one to explore.
But join too many and there is the danger that you get sucked in to the time-wasting vortex.
And let this time-wasting vortex put you off social networks altogether and you could be over-looking a huge marketing opportunity for your business!
Decisions, decisions – which one should you belong to?
Believe it or not, there is one simple question that will clarify this problem for you.
And that question is: Which social networks do your potential clients belong to?
This may should obvious but too many business owners make decisions over social networks based on their own personal experiences.
“Facebook is full of kids sharing drunken party photos”
“LinkedIn is only for people looking to get head-hunted”
“MySpace is great for free music downloads but that’s about it”
Just because this is your “perception”, it may not necessarily be the “reality”.
So before you make any decisions about which social networks may work for your business, take a moment (and preferably several!) to ask your clients which networks they belong to.
After all, your marketing efforts are NEVER about you! They are always about your clients :O)
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- Doesn’t blogging & social media take up so much time?
- Cool marketing tool for your inbox
Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, social networks
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All very true. Yet, I tend to think the broader your online presence, the better. Many blog platforms, for example, have autopost services that will automatically update all your other profiles, so you basically just have to post once to reach all (or at least most) of your “hangouts”.
That said, I’ve recently been wondering how multiple online presences fit in with the search engines’ ongoing quest for canonical URLs and ignoring multiple instances of the same content. It would be a shame if a blanket presence results in your valuable content being penalised in searches.
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Hi Kimmo. You’ve raised a very interesting point here. Yes, you can set up profiles and by using RSS feeds & clever little plug-ins, you can update your status on numerous profiles with one click of a button.
I do advocate the use of automatic tools to help you save time – but over the past year, it has become apparent that automatic updates can often replace the personal touch and can be detrimental to your online brand.
Yup, you have to be aware of the duplication rules that search engines like to follow (duplicate content can be ignored) but more important than the search engines is the human beings who see the content duplicated and may get turned off by over-zealous automation. I know I have been with some people that I have followed.
It comes back down to your potential clients – if they are active on FB & Twitter, yet see the exact same content from you in both, it’s boring and they switch off. You become “Noise”.
So, by all means have profiles here there and everywhere, but you can’t possibly have the time or energy to be proactive in more than 2 or 3. And IMHO it is far more effective to be proactive in 2 or 3 than be on auto-pilot in dozens.
Any other thoughts or comments?
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I don’t want this to develop in a dialogue between just you and me, so I’ll shut up after this to leave room for others.
You’re right about proactivity and the audience potentially regarding duplicate content as noise. Then again, we’ve been pounded on the head with the importance of backlinks for years. It would be interesting to know whether the backlinks could in fact offset the potential search engine “contempt” and the drop-out rate of viewers.
All this, of course, rather cynically from the point of view of “increasing traffic at all costs”.
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Karen, I couldn’t agree more re: your response to Kimmo. It is really irritating to use something like facebook and be bombarded with loads of tweets that are completely out of context. I also avoid using automated tweet tools because they end up in your tweet stream at times that may not suit you or the majority of your followers. Infortunately, good use of social media takes time, energy and enthusiasm that can not be duplicated by a plug in
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