social media

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.

Readers Crave Destinations

Last Decem­ber I offered my two cents on what’s hap­pen­ing with blog­ging in response to Jere­mi­ah Owyang’s provoca­tive post that pro­nounced the gold­en era of tech blog­ging dead. Now, I’m not sure how peo­ple feel about that a few months on, but some­thing that’s stuck with me is how we gath­er infor­ma­tion online today. Sure, we’re hav­ing lots of “con­ver­sa­tions,” but read­ers still crave destinations.

Good writ­ers know that in order to get any­one to look at any­thing online, you need a hook. When we share links on Twit­ter and Face­book, they’re only inter­est­ing if you can tease peo­ple to click into the sto­ry. We’re all writ­ing head­lines for every­thing we share with the online com­mu­ni­ty. To me that means we still need blogs, websites…anywhere you can put lots of words and ideas next to each other.

We like info snack­ing, but we’re real­ly picky eaters. Giv­en the amount of infor­ma­tion that’s out there it’s only fair that read­ers only sam­ple what they like at the con­tent buf­fet. But make no mis­take, cura­tion takes more than the almighty “con­ver­sa­tion.” So, writ­ers, don’t despair: read­ers still crave the yum­my con­tent that’s always made the web great.

Remember Your Passions

Some­one con­tact­ed me recent­ly to do a sto­ry about Bring Your A’s Game, my quest to bring the Oak­land Ath­let­ics back to Philadel­phia, and it real­ly sparked my imag­i­na­tion about the cam­paign again. Last sum­mer was great: the A’s came back to town for inter­league; we had fun at Mem­phis Tap­room’s beer gar­den, and we even ral­lied for a Sat­ur­day night game at the ball­park. I had a great time meet­ing peo­ple, young and old, and talk­ing to them about the A’s and base­ball and Philadelphia.

Then things stalled a bit. What do you do next? Sure, these things are long, drawn out affairs, so how do you get peo­ple to pay atten­tion to your sto­ry? The answer, at least for me, is to remem­ber the pas­sion that drove me to it in the first place. I want to con­nect Philadel­phi­a’s rich base­ball his­to­ry to some­thing in the present. I want to get peo­ple excit­ed about a crosstown rival­ry that has­n’t exist­ed in near­ly 60 years. It’s not easy.

What awoke in me as I talked about what moti­vat­ed me to start Bring Your A’s Game was the fun of it. Most­ly when I talk about it, I expect­ed peo­ple to have the kind of reac­tion Gargano did when I talked to him in the sum­mer of ’10, which is to say, com­i­cal­ly neg­a­tive. I’m often stunned when peo­ple agree that Philadel­phia not only could sup­port two ball­clubs, but that it should. Maybe they don’t all like the Bring Your A’s Game page, but it’s a good feel­ing to not be laughed out of the court of pub­lic opin­ion. So I want to do more of it.

I men­tioned last week on the long neglect­ed Bring Your A’s Game blog and now I’m seri­ous. I’d love to find new ways to con­nect to new audi­ences, espe­cial­ly those that aren’t base­ball mad. I want to wage this con­ver­sa­tion with folks who don’t know any­thing about base­ball, but who like provoca­tive, dis­rup­tive ideas. If you know of such a forum, let me know and I’ll pre­pare accordingly.

The only way to tru­ly real­ize your pas­sions is to engage oth­ers who don’t share them and invite them to join you. It’s invig­o­rat­ing and a vital way to keep the cre­ative juices flow­ing. Try it. You’ll be glad you did.

Unfollowing Is Hard

One of my dig­i­tal New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions was to “go pro” on Twit­ter. I’m near­ly there and I can tell you it’s not easy. For me it’s meant unfol­low­ing and plug­ging folks into lists or just dis­con­nect­ing alto­geth­er in order to pay atten­tion to things that are, you know, work-relat­ed. In some cas­es it means sev­er­ing ties with old co-work­ers, high school class­mates and vibrant locals in exchange for nation­al and region­al media, cur­rent co-work­ers and influ­encers. It’s a win­dow into their process, some­thing that would­n’t have been pos­si­ble a decade ago, and it’s more impor­tant to my work than ever. Thing is, has this trans­for­ma­tion sucked all the fun out of Twit­ter and Face­book? Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Cleaning Digital House

Hap­py New Year! Make any res­o­lu­tions? One of mine is to stream­line par­tic­i­pa­tion on cer­tain types of social media. In 2012, I don’t want to feel like I’m doing data entry when I’m try­ing out a new app; I want social shar­ing to be fun and open-ended.

I caught this link on The Verge yes­ter­day and took less than two min­utes revok­ing per­mis­sions across my pre­ferred social media plat­forms. Found ser­vices that I maybe used once in 2008 still had access to my info! Crazy, right? 

Part of not feel­ing like a data mule is know­ing what you’re shar­ing and with whom. Folks often think that cut­ting back on join­ing new ser­vices is what mat­ters, but think about all the ser­vices you grant access to your Twit­ter, Face­book and Google accounts. Go look and see for your­self. It’s a lit­tle scary.

Now, I love new toys as much as the next guy, but it’s impor­tant to be mind­ful of those per­mis­sions. I have no idea how many user agree­ments I’ve signed online, but I’m sure it’s too many. Stay on top of those items and you’ll do well to lead a clean­er life online in 2012.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to delet­ing noti­fi­ca­tion emails…