Category: Social Media

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What Social Media is NOT

My firm is actively involved in social media, not only for my own business, but as a content provider. From my experience I have found that clients typically misunderstand the purpose and have different expectations about using social media to promote their business.

Social Media is NOT:

  1. A platform for you to have every status update be a commercial about your services and products.
  2. One sided and all about you the business.
  3. Where you dominate and set the conversation.
  4. A sales lead generation platform.
  5. An after thought where you may post or update your profiles once a week or once a month.
  6. A self propelling site. Build it and they will join should not be your mantra.

Social Media IS:

  1. A great information exchange opportunity.
  2. Where you can soft-sell your services once you have established credibility.
  3. Enjoyable due to the richness of interaction with followers and fans.
  4. Can bring you business and networking opportunities.
  5. Consider it a public relations and branding tool.
  6. A marketing endeavor that should have a goal and purpose in your overall plan.
  7. Important as a part of your total online exposure.

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Pinterest Changes Policies to Move Copyright Onus Onto You

I just got this notice in my inbox on Saturday from Pinterest:

You agree not to post User Content that:

  • infringes any third party’s Intellectual Property Rights, privacy rights, publicity rights, or other personal or proprietary rights;
  • contains any information or content that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships
  • To third parties.  Pinterest values and respects the rights of third party creators and content owners, and expects you to do the same.  You therefore agree that any User Content that you post to the Service does not and will not violate any law or infringe the rights of any third party, including without limitation any Intellectual Property Rights (defined below), publicity rights or rights of privacy.  We reserve the right, but are not obligated, to remove User Content from the Service for any reason, including User Content that we believe violates these Terms or the Pinterest Acceptable Use Policy.  It is important that you understand that you are in the best position to know if the materials you post are legally allowed.  We therefore ask that you please be careful when deciding whether to make User Content available on our Service, including whether you can pin or re-pin User Content on your boards.  To learn more about copyright and fair use, please click here for some links to useful third party resources.

With every image you find on a website, or for that matter anywhere on the web, having some kind of copyright, you are potentially infringing on a copyright when you right click any image and stick it to your Pinterest board. With the concerns appearing on the web that Pinterest may go the way of Napster, it appears that Pinterest is taking action to mitigate potential copyright problems aggressively by moving the onus of infringement issues directly onto you the user.

Only you the website owner really knows where you have gotten their images. Even if you buy them from iStockPhoto, did you buy a one time use image or a multi-use image? If someone grabs your one-time use image and puts it on their Pinterest board pointing to you, it creates a copyright issue and potentially could have ramifications further down the road. Remember how Getty images sued website owners about their images being in website templates created by third parties?

Be careful with Pinterest, it may be a great place to get noticed but maybe a ticking time bomb.

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How Much Social Interaction Do You Really Need on Twitter or Facebook?

How much hands on fan interaction do you really need on your Twitter or Facebook business page? In my opinion, it depends on how large your fan base is. Here are some general guidelines to consider.

Twitter

under 100 followers – take time the first 30 days or more to follow people, sort them into lists, try to engage other writers and your followers. If you do not engage with people, your fan numbers will not grow. You may add one or two fans a month, but will in most cases your numbers will simple stay at a low level.

over 100 followers and up – your fan base with grow the more time you invest in interaction. I like five to ten tweets a day and then engagement with followers three times a week. For my own personal account I interact with followers on a daily basis, but if you don’t have the budget three days a week will still work out fine.

Facebook

under 100 followers – you will really need to buy ads to try to build your fan base. Try Facebook pay per click using sponsored stories. Be aware that you will add fans quickly, but may lose up to one third of your new fans when you stop advertising. I am not sure as to why, but this is what I have seen happen. If you do nothing, you may add only one fan a month. After you get 100 followers fans will grow at a steady rate, but only if your content is good. You don’t even need to spend a lot of time interacting with fans once you hit this level, it seems to be more a factor of the quality of your content.

over 100 followers and up – the frequency of posts as you get to this level appears to be important. One or two status updates a day appear to simply get lost in the noise that is now part of the Facebook timeline. I recommend five updates a day. I have not seen a huge increase of fans based on interacting with them, growth seems to be more a factor of memorable content versus engagement.

I invite you to check out our Twitter and Facebook page management services to see if we might be a good match for your business’ social media needs. You’ll find that we provide a number of service engagement levels at affordable prices.

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Social Networking Meltdown – Which Are Important to Use

One clients just left me this comment on the phone about my recommendation of Pinterest, and I think it is indicative of how many small business owners feel. “All I could think of is  yet another social networking site I have to add to my work load.  I am about ready to throw my hands up, I don’t think I can add one more thing in the social media area as I can barely keep up with what I am doing now.” These sentiments have been voiced by many as the online world is bombarded with new programs and platforms.

What social networks deserve your real attention as a small to medium sized business owner at this point?

  1. Get on Google+ and integrate your website and blog with the +1 button. This one is just too big to not have an early participation in. Why? Because it’s a Google property and Google is tightly integrating +1 votes and Google+ activity with its search engine.
  2. Make sure you are using Twitter. The viral nature and the ability to interact with a wide market is important to selling outside your local sphere. I’m watching sponsored Tweets very closely for small business and feel that in the long run activity on Twitter will be a key marketing strategy even for local selling businesses. Link sharing and interaction with others in your industry as well as prospects in a casual environment make this one of my top social networking picks.
  3. Make sure you have a Facebook Business page set up. Although right now I feel that businesses may want to have a minimal presence there due to poor fan growth, due to the changes Facebook made to how brands use Facebook in the fourth quarter of 2011, things could change, and change quickly. In fact, Facebook is announcing what changes they will be making for brands on Wednesday February 29th. This announcement may change my recommendations, but for now based on my research paper, I recommend a wait and see approach.
  4. If you are selling business to business or business to government, LinkedIn is the place for you to connect. Establish a full profile and then update your wall on LinkedIn at least twice a day. Get active in groups and ask questions. Not all businesses will thrive using LinkedIn, but many who cater to businesses and want to reach business executives should consider LinkedIn a top priority. I have not had success with LinkedIn advertising so steer clear of that for now.
  5. Pinterest is a hot new property, but unless you are selling retail fashion merchandise, I recommend you don’t take on this social network. Although you may check it out in the future, if you are strapped for time steer clear of this one for now unless you are selling retail jewelry or clothing.

I hope this helps you to decide which networks you should focus on, the bottom-line is get going on something and start building your network now. Social media will simply not get less important over time.

If you are overwhelmed by social media we can be your solution, with competent American college educated writers, we take on updating your profiles and pages; building your network for your future.