Do We Have To Be Everywhere?
Wednesday, November 25, 2009 | 6 Comments
Tags: engagement, Listening, Social Media, social media management
Posted in: Listening, Marketing, Social Media
One of the most instant and powerful reactions to social media is information overload. So many sites! So many tools! Where on earth do we start, and do we have to do them all?!?
First things first: absolutely not.
There. Do you feel a little better? Catch your breath, and walk with me through a few of the reasons why trying to be everywhere isn’t necessary.
Your Community Isn’t Everywhere.
One of the reasons we so strongly advocate listening as the foundation of every social media strategy is because it’s the best way to figure out what sites, tools, and channels your community, audience and customers are using. It helps you make strategic decisions about:
- Who’s doing the talking about you
- Where they’re doing that talking
- How often those conversations are happening
- Where the larger conversations are that you want to be part of
If the chatter about real estate is on blogs but not on Twitter, then you can cross Twitter off your list (and yes, even if CNN and Alyssa Milano are there). If there are passionate enthusiasts about green building and sustainable design are on forums and Twitter but they’re not on Facebook, you don’t have to be pouring resources into that fan page you thought you needed.
Use your listening tools and strategies to pinpoint the discussions that are most important and valuable to you, and have the confidence to table the rest until and unless it matters to your business. It’s not about being cool or cutting edge. It’s about being present and relevant to the people who are asking for you.
Human Resources are Finite.
Let’s face it: we don’t have armies of people to deploy across the social web and spend all day in the trenches, chatting away on Facebook and YouTube and Ning and LinkedIn and Twitter and blogs and…you get the idea.
Social media often needs to tuck into our day, much like email and phone calls. We need to answer when called, start the conversation ourselves when it makes sense to do so, and otherwise not feel chained to our desks just in case someone shouts for us on MySpace.
Broken record moment: listening helps with this, too. Once you know where the relevant conversations are happening, it’s much easier to allocate resources to manage your company presence on those sites.
Social media can often become an AND instead of an OR, as well. If we have only so many hours per day to be on our chosen social media communities, it’s a great idea to spend the time and effort to audit all of the other things you’re already doing. Maybe the e-newsletter never took off but the chat on your community site did? It might be time to table the stuff that isn’t working in favor of redirecting resources to the activities that show promise toward your goals.
Impact Requires Depth of Experience.
If you’ve ever been to a professional networking event and have tried the “speed networking” or merely flitted about the room in hopes that you’ll meet everyone, you’ll know that short moments of connection rarely have the impact of a lasting conversation. You may have a business card in hand, but you’ll have trouble recalling the details, or finding that spark of commonality that means you’ll want to reach out and connect again.
So it goes with social networks, which are built on the premise of human touchpoints through technology. If you’re busy just collecting followers and fans and scrambling across the social web in hopes that being everywhere means you’re more visible, you’ll miss out. As we often say, it’s not about finding people in social media. It’s always about finding the right people.
So, silence that voice that tells you more and more is better and better. Use your listening skills and find the one or two places where you know you can have consistent, repetitive experiences and dialogue with the folks that want most to engage with you. (How do you know who they are, you ask? Start by talking to them and you’ll quickly see.) Providing consistency and familiarity over time breeds affinity. And affinity over time breeds loyalty, advocacy, and all the things you know you want but aren’t sure how to get.
Tools Come and Go
Don’t forget: the tools and sites we’ve come to know and love are almost certainly finite. Nothing lasts forever, most especially on the fleeting and fast moving internet. Remember that your best bet for any social media approach is a strategy that has a solid foundation irrespective and completely independent of the tools you use to get there. In other words, don’t talk about Twitter or Facebook. Learn what they help you do and accomplish, and always seek out the best and most streamlined paths you need in order to achieve those goals.
Put your listening ears on first, and you’ll always be able to find where the discussion and the people are.
So, does that help? What’s pushing you to feel like you have to be everywhere? And how are you applying filters to make sure you spend your time where it’s most valuable? Let’s have some chit chat in the comments.
6 Responses to “Do We Have To Be Everywhere?”
Joseph Fiore on November 25th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Amber,
As a competing vendor in this space, your points on feeling overwhelmed and the need to execute on strategy are well noted. However I am also trying to reconcile some of the thoughts you put forward on communities not being everywhere.
The chief concern I have is when we apply this logic to inform strategies and approaches which treat depth of sourcing as a necessity in so far as the incidents likelihood to appear in top 10 search rank and bruise a company’s Google resume.
Audience membership found on message boards, smaller channel and local online forums have a much stronger sense of kinship than high bandwidth channels, and brands appearing genuine and excited about opinion and feedback emerging from these areas of the social Web stand a much better chance of winning over entire communities.
Excluding channels deemed less valuable or not heavily trafficked without careful thought and consideration to the fact that each should be treated as an equal opportunity to winning audience interest and attention is a monitoring and engagement driving strategy without checking blind spots.
Joseph
@RepuTrack
Amber Naslund on November 25th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Joseph,
That wasn’t quite my point. I most certainly would never suggest that popularity of a site or traffic should dictate it’s value to a company. Quite the opposite.
Here: “Use your listening tools and strategies to pinpoint the discussions that are most important and valuable to you, and have the confidence to table the rest until and unless it matters to your business. It’s not about being cool or cutting edge. It’s about being present and relevant to the people who are asking for you.”
What’s relevant and valuable could very well NOT be what’s in the mainstream, and that’s the critical point about listening and monitoring. It’s finding the gems out there that might not make the news. The small, niche communities that have passionate members and lively discussions.
My point is exactly that for every business, it’s critical to pay attention and find where those communities ARE, because they are not in every place at the same time, and following the path of popularity or least resistance will most certainly ensure that you miss some valuable conversation.
Hope that clarifies things. I believe you and I are in strong agreement.
Joseph Fiore on November 25th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
It does Amber – thank-you for the clarification. And you are correct that on the points you’ve expressed here we are definitely in agreement.
Mike White on February 4th, 2010 at 12:03 am
This was a pretty good read. I’m happy:glad I found this – from a sapphire cutting artist
Chris Ross on November 25th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Amber, well written and insightful post, you touch on a number of things that I think gnaw at most marketers when it comes to social media. One of your best points is to let go of the pressure to achieve big interaction “numbers” and focus on quality engagement. In the end, social media is about relationships and as we all know we get out of a relationship what we put into it.