Just Be Real, Man
Much like SEO, the social media realm is beleaguered in a continuous state of flux. Which is to be expected, as we blunder and plunder our way along the path to social sentient enlightenment.
If Stuart Smalley Can – So Can You
Some of the best advice I was given long ago in regard to getting social with media, something you hear over and over these days, is to focus on your passion and just be yourself. Sounds easy, right? More like easier said than done.
I can’t teach you how to be yourself (let’s be honest – no one wants that), but I can set you in the right direction by helping remove distortion from the process.
Aggregate Syndicate Automate Repeat
Early on, SEOs and new media marketers looked at social networks as a way for rapid deployment of their branding message. Which was typically automatically syndicated, over and over and over.
Tools like Hootsuite enticed marketers with the ‘set it and forget it’ broadcast methodology by allowing users to punch in, schedule or automatically feed a status update, the exact same status update, to every single social network. In some instances multiple times. While this got (out of hand quickly) the word out, it eroded the ‘social’ aspect of engagement with bot-delivered duplicate status updates.
If you followed a brand on Facebook, Twitter and Google, it was pretty common to see the same message hit each network at the same time a few times. Lamesauce.
Dump Automatic Updates
Trading out a measure of distortion for one with more control can help your status updates regain a healthy portion of human personality.
Here’s how to get started:
- Unburden your social self by disconnecting automatic feed (rss/xml/blog etc.) posting
You need to control and massage each message per social network to maximize effectiveness. That’s right. Old Skool.
This means you pick the pic that shows on your Facebook status update, not Facebook. This will allow you to ‘speak’ a little more true to self when sharing content on social networks instead of sharing status updates composed of bland web page titles like a robot.
Plus, at all costs, try to get your actual URL in the status update instead of a URL shortner. Link juice never tasted so good!
While I can’t tell you a sure-fire way to ‘be yourself’ and ‘follow your passion’ at the same time (or independently), I can tell you that focusing more on what you share on each social network will yield personality to your status updates.
Turning off automatic, syndicating status updates is a great way to start sounding less like a pre-recorded message.
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Consider limiting daily status updates to 3-5/day and not posting the same update to each network, but to the one most relevant. Or, if you’ve got BIG NEWS, at least consider a unique approach to updating each social network.
A little personality can go a long way. Or, be a bot if you want.
