I see this all the time: people create Facebook business pages for their enterprises, and they post content to it rather than to their Web-site blogs.
In my opinion, this is wrong; it’s backwards. Read on if you want to know why.
Social Networking
Sharing Blog Posts on Social Networks: Why & How
If you have responsibility for online marketing for your enterprise, you might be tempted to focus most of your attention and energy on social media destinations like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and so on.
I get it. Sharing on social networks is a good thing. It’s fun. It encourages engagement and interaction and can be very reinforcing (gotta love those likes and shares and comments). And it’s easy. And you probably spend a fair amount of time on those social networks already.
If you view your social networks as the center of your online marketing universe, I’m inviting you to consider shifting your paradigm. I’m suggesting you consider the argument that it’s your Web site that should be the heart and hub of your online marketing strategy.
Before you gripe and whine
If you are a business person prone to griping and whining about the social media learning curve, let me try to cure you. Meet my (91 year-old) mother-in-law.
How To Get 1,000 Twitter Followers In 24 Hours: Follow 1,016 People On Twitter
I’m kidding with this title, but it’s no joke. This does appear to be the strategy many follow to get Twitter followers. Call me curmudgeonly. But please explain it to me like I’m a six year-old: How does one follow 1,000 people on Twitter (not to mention 99,953)?
Mistaking Me For Someone Who Cares
We all know that guy, the guy who tweets 48 times a day and appears never to have had an unexpressed thought. The guy who makes you think, “I’m sorry, but you must be mistaking me for someone who cares.” It’s easy to let the fear of becoming that guy discourage us from blogging and posting to social networks. Don’t. You’re probably not that guy. And if you start becoming that guy, people who care about you will let you know.
Social Networking is a little like Baseball
Social networking is a little like baseball. Neither is rocket surgery, but both have their complexities and nuances. If you’ve decided to finally take the plunge, to give social networking the old college try, I say go for it. But have patience. Be prepared to tread water for a while. Every social network has its own peculiarities that take some time to comprehend.
About.me: WTF?
Today I tried to contact someone a trusted friend referred me to. My friend had given me the link to the fellow’s About.me page. A page on which I could find no telephone number. No email address. (Forget about a snail-mail address.) When I clicked his About.me page’s Email Me button, I was given the opportunity to send him a message — but only if I either joined About.me or authorized About.me to access my Facebook or Twitter accounts. Is it just me, or is anyone else annoyed by this kind of crapola?
Unfollow-A-Huckster Wednesday
In yet another attempt to discover Twitter’s value, I started following more people yesterday. Then I spent time lurking and trolling, reading and scrolling. My dominant impression: there’s a whole lot of huckstering going on.
Short(er) Form Video
If you’re scratching your head over Vine and Instagram video, Mitch Joel offers an interesting perspective in last week’s Short(er) Form Video blog article on Six Pixels of Separation. Money quote: Who knows if Vine or Instagram will win this short-form social sharing video war? We just need to be asking better questions. For every […]
14 days exploring Pinterest, Day #3
Much of Day #3 in my 14 days exploring Pinterest involved more academic/meta activity: reading about Pinterest. Suddenly struck by the realization that I wasn’t following the very advice I give to every client who has ever asked me how to get started on social networks, I closed most of my browser windows and took actual, concrete (an odd term to use for something on the Internet, no?) steps to end the hypocrisy.