Tag Archives: social media strategy

What’s the Future of Blogging?

Two inter­est­ing things about blog­ging lately:

First from Mar­co Arment

Then from Robert Scoble on why he’s using G+ and Face­book for blog­ging.

I tend to agree with the for­mer, but I’d much rather do what Scoble is doing. Why? Because it’s much lighter weight than com­ing here to write AND it does­n’t have the audi­ence built-in that oth­er social net­works do. I see that Share but­ton when I’m in Gmail and think, “That would be so easy!”

What’s keep­ing me from mak­ing the switch? Audi­ence. Sure, I have nev­er been good about writ­ing every day, but Word­Press makes it easy for peo­ple to find stuff I’ve writ­ten about since I start­ed blog­ging. Google+ is get­ting bet­ter at help­ing peo­ple find me in the con­text of oth­er search results, but it’s not quite the same.

But why not LinkedIn? Tum­blr? Medi­um? They’re all inter­est­ing places. I often think I should use LinkedIn as my default social net­work and share out to Twit­ter from it!

Put anoth­er way: why should­n’t I switch to G+ or Medi­um, you know, beyond own­ing my platform?

To me, the long tail ben­e­fits are worth­while. Word­Press is eas­i­ly book­marked and shared. Google+ is a neat lit­tle ecosys­tem, but that’s just it: it wants to be self-con­tained in a dif­fer­ent way that most oth­er networks.

Why You Need a Personal Content Strategy

Scoble’s post on scal­able liv­ing offers some inter­est­ing insight into how peo­ple use social plat­forms to com­mu­ni­cate with audi­ences. What I find most inter­est­ing are his views on the role of Face­book in how he shares con­tent. Here’s a key pas­sage from what he wrote:

So, what role does a blog have in this new world. It cer­tain­ly is NOT cen­tral­iz­ing my life. Face­book is — by far — the best place to do that. This morn­ing alone I lis­tened to sev­er­al songs in the car. Do you real­ly want me to post every time that hap­pens here? No way. But on Face­book that’s eas­i­ly dealt with. Even bet­ter Face­book usu­al­ly fil­ters that stuff out and Face­book gets bet­ter over time at fig­ur­ing out what you want to engage with and what you don’t. If you saw every­thing I did on my pro­file come through on your home feed you would unfol­low with­in an hour. Instead 330,000 new peo­ple in the past year alone have sub­scribed to me on Face­book. Why? It’s scal­able liv­ing and hav­ing great inbound makes life more interesting.

Now, Scoble is an edge case, to put it mild­ly. Few of us com­mu­ni­cate on social plat­forms with even a frac­tion of the peo­ple who fol­low him. But how many of us would even con­sid­er using Face­book to share con­tent that’s relat­ed to our work as social media pro­fes­sion­als? Would your friends be inter­est­ed in your views on Google+? I doubt it. I know mine wouldn’t.

Most of what Scoble dis­cuss­es is how we share and con­sume infor­ma­tion. He notes that Face­book’s algo­rithm helps you make choic­es about what you see and what you don’t. That’s not true of oth­er plat­forms and if you’re like me, you don’t mind infor­ma­tion over­load. But have you giv­en much thought to how you share content?

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Why You Need a Per­son­al Con­tent Strategy”

The Problem of Platform Proliferation

What’s your Pin­ter­est strat­e­gy? Don’t have one? Panic!

If you spend time scan­ning the social web, you’ve prob­a­bly read this sen­ti­ment some­where. You see it every time a new plat­form launch­es. The ser­vice goes live and a throng of social media experts rush to judg­ment, assur­ing you that your busi­ness is doomed if you don’t stand up a pres­ence and take advan­tage of the lat­est craze.

Don’t believe them? Do so at your peril!

OK, that may be a bit extreme. If you’re a social media pro­fes­sion­al, you’re famil­iar with this sto­ry. It’s con­fus­ing! You prob­a­bly want the brand you rep­re­sent to be on the cut­ting edge of the social space, but how do you make your case? Will it be worth the effort and resources? Will you lose your mind try­ing to pub­lish to every­thing? What if peo­ple think your brand pres­ence is, um, lame?

Take a deep breath. Use your judg­ment and fig­ure out what works best for you. Chances are you’re the per­son respon­si­ble for mak­ing deci­sions. It needs to be the right fit for your function.

What if the right Pin­ter­est strat­e­gy is none at all? Adri­enne Rhodes sug­gests that may be the right answer for your brand over at Social Media Today.

See? It’s pos­si­ble to say that the best strat­e­gy is none at all.

Most impor­tant things to ask your­self when eval­u­at­ing new platforms.

  • Fit. Does it make sense for your brand?
  • Lev­el of effort. Can you par­tic­i­pate effec­tive­ly in the com­mu­ni­ty you’re joining?
  • Return on invest­ment. Ask your­self what you’re get­ting out of it. Trust me, if you don’t, your key stake­hold­ers will. And do bet­ter than just ask your­self. Mea­sure, mea­sure, measure!

So the next time you see sto­ries about the new plat­form gold rush, don’t wor­ry if you’re not first to stake your claim. Focus your resources on the plat­forms that are most impor­tant to your busi­ness first before spread­ing your­self (and your con­tent) too thin across the social web.