What I mean by this is the misguided expectation that having a huge following somehow translates into success.
Surely it can’t be that easy?
It’s not hard to get a big following on twitter, facebook and all the other sites but will it do you any good? The desire for popularity on the web is fast becoming a disease of pandemic proportion.
I know that having a large database can be attributed to “currency”, however, you can only really mine that database if you resort to the rather ugly method of “push marketing”.
I can see the point in having a large following to give you a bigger audience to “share” your wisdom with but in reality, most of the people following you don’t care – most of them are caught up in this growing phenomenon of social media popularity, thus meaning why they followed you in the first place! Not because they wanted to read what you send out – and if that’s the case then what’s the point? You are never going to gain anything by having them there.
You can usually spot someone who suffers from the “numbers affliction” because usually the first thing they ask is “how many followers do you have?” This is particularly un-fair as it puts unnecessary pressure on the individual to compete, which in turn could enforce making bad decisions such as spending valuable time trying to get new followers and forgetting the ones who want to know you.
Focusing on getting big numbers of followers means you are doing a dis-service to the ones that want to know you as you are not giving them the time or interaction that they deserve.
Social media is not a race. It is not there to be used as a competition and if it is, then where’s the fun?
It could be akin to going to a cocktail party with the view of “let me see how many people I can meet tonight by just running around the place gathering as many names as possible”, instead of just having a meaningful conversation with a few people – like you would if you were at a party. It’s a lot more fun and a lot more fruitful.
Therefore, I would argue that social media should be seen not as a numbers game and who can be seen to be more popular – but be seen as a social CRM with the emphasis on “social”.
Social media has gone beyond a series of platforms and into a real time business to business, peer to peer, friend to friend conversations – it’s an enhanced method of collaborating on information, projects, learning etc
As Brian Sollis said “Socialized media didn’t invent “conversations,” it simply organized and amplified them and established an opportunity for learning and collaboration.”
… and he’s right.
Social media gives us the ability to “peer into” our customer’s/colleague’s/collaborator’s world and effect change in real time. By affecting that change in real time you, as the instrument of the change, can achieve recognition and influential status as the “go to person” within your area of expertise – this cannot happen if all you do is chase numbers.
Try these:
- Have goals, this sets your focus and lets face it, it’s an essential component to success
- Have conversations: that’s what it’s there for.
- Don’t get fixated on numbers: I want to know you not just because you have a big following.
- Share people and information – reach out and help people
- Remember the three keys to getting it right: Authenticity, Consistency and Leadership – find your space.
- Avoid the pitfalls:
- There are no short cuts
- Control your emotions – remember you can undo a lot of good with one emotional outburst.
- Answering someone’s question for them – do not assume that someone else has already answered for them. Answer questions and give your perspective.
7. Above all it is not a race.
Remember Social media should be used in this order (Courtsey of Brian Solis, TechCrunch) – “In my research and experience, we’ve identified that every online conversation worthy of response directly matched specific divisions within an organization and usually rank in this order:”
- Support
- PR
- Marketing
- Sales
Social media is about people, conversations, learning and friendship – to take the route of getting big numbers is a folly and can only lead to disappointment and aimlessly wandering around the web – don’t fall into this trap.
Remember “I” in Latin is “ego” and “I” in Latin also stands for 1 (hence number 1 – aka ego) – therefore anything to do with numbers is just flattering your ego.
Let’s put the “social” back into social media.
Your thought’s?
N
