I’m not talking about food. I’m taking about blogs or whatever place you hang your avatar out for the world to see.
Recently I decided to go on a “weight loss” program.
Why?
Well several reasons..time, illness, lack of interest..whatever the reason I started deleting, disabling or un-publishing stuff like mad.
I started with my Facebook Fan page. I created it as an experiment to understand how it worked for my consulting career. Mission accomplished. 200+ fans later I have no direction or reason to keep doing it at the moment. So I put it on holiday. Facebook will keep making changes – guaranteed but for right now I don’t need to have a fan page. The next page I create, should I choose to do so will be because I have a human not technology reason to have one. I have no desire to have a page just to say I have one.
What was next?
Posterous. I’ve had a blog on there for over a year now. I posted infrequently yet I had followers. Who knows why. I made it private and no more posting for me on that platform. At least for now.
To create your own plan ask yourself:
Where are you really involved?
Do you care about what you’re doing? If you feel guilty about not participating more – it’s on the list to go!
If you aren’t ready to delete just make your accounts private, if possible. If you don’t miss it after a few months I’d say it’s safe to get rid of it.
Next to go will probably be my YouTube channel. Again I have zero reason to keep it active. I have one video!
You don’t have to be on every social network or whatever’s cool at the moment. It’s like spring cleaning your media presence. It needs to be done. You wouldn’t keep clothes that were falling apart or stuff you never wore in your closet in hopes that you’d wear it? Well same thing applies online. Well unless you’re a hoader…that’s a whole other issue entirely.
I’m sure there is some social media guru or “social media scientist” out there who disagrees but whatever gurus are overrated.
If you can’t part with it use it. Create a plan and implement it. Otherwise it deserves to be in the rubbish pile.
Huh? I’m not crazy. I’ve heard that alot. A client wants to add Twitter or Facebook… or whatever social network to their site but they aren’t interested in doing any work. The reasons vary but honestly why bother. It’s like asking someone on a date and then not talking for the entire time.
Why would you care to see them again? You wouldn’t…unless you had lost your mind.
Throw a link to Facebook on the site. Why?
What are you planning to DO once you have a fan page? Does your business really need one? Or rather are you going to do anything useful with it other than talk at your customers.
Or someone gets excited and says “Oh let’s get a Twitter account!”. Again…to what end? I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve been in where it was obvious that a) the person speaking had never used Twitter b) had no idea what they were talking about and c) had no valid reason other than it sounded cool. On what planet…is something cool if it doesn’t make sense for your business and no one is going to take ownership of it. Waste of time and money.
Some people don’t want to give customers a platform to complain. Well… get real… consumers complain all the time. But people who love you write more good things than bad. Besides if you had a lousy product wouldn’t you want to improve it. When did we get so afraid of criticism? Not everyone is going to like your product or service.
Just a thought.
By not giving your loyal happy customers a place to talk and share their stories you are missing out. Word of mouth is your friend…not your enemy.
Promoting your products or service all day long is not a relationship building activity.
Go have a conversation already…social media is about building relationships, which you cannot do without engagement just being on the network isn’t enough.
If you are just starting to build a brand presence. Creating a website can be a big part of establishing that presence. Not every new business needs one but it’s a great tool to get the word out that you are open for business and allows potential customers and business partners to learn about what you are about. Before you get started having your site built below are a few questions to ask the company or individual you approach.
Make sure you ask for references. And of course get everything in writing. A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
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