Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

My first video blog, get in and take a look

I’ve spoken to a few people recently who wanted to ‘wait’ before they start their social media ‘campaign’. Wait until the website is ready, wait until they have their leaflets printed, wait until they have got their offering just right.

The thing is, in my opinion, this suggests that the only interest in social media is getting people to look at your stuff. If you met friends at the pub, or school gates, you wouldn’t not talk to them until everything was ready, so why treat your communities on social media any differently. Too many people are treating social media as somewhere to host a ‘campaign’.

Social media, Twitter, Facebook, wherever your crowd is assembling is just an extension of real life and should be treated the same. Sometimes you will talk about your stuff, sometimes you will talk about other people’s stuff, sometimes you’ll just chat. To presume that everyone on Twitter or Facebook is sat waiting for you to appear with your next big idea is taking a particularly one dimensional view of the conversations.

People’s businesses evolve, people’s lives evolve and this will be played out on social media just as it will in real life. Assemble your crowd and you’ll find that people might actually be interested in the evolution of your product or service. Arrive and say “here I am, look at me, click here to buy” and you’ll get a whole different response.

The internet became two way

but I’m not sure that everyone noticed yet….

Back in 1997, I was working for Nigel Dixon & Co. Estate Agents in Witney in Oxfordshire.  Around that time, prospective clients were starting to ask “are you on the Internet?”. Enough of them asked that we took the plunge, got ourselves a website up on that there Internet and the whole world could now read about us and see details of the houses we had for sale.

That was in 1997, when the Internet was still being used as a broadcast medium by most. You put your advert up there and hoped people saw it. You gave your website address out all over the place and, after a few years, people called SEO specialists came and showed you how to get more people to find your website.

But that was 13 years ago. The Internet has changed, massively. Some people are still treating their website as their presence on the Internet, simply broadcasting their stuff out there and hoping that enough people will find it and respond to it to make it worth their while. A lot like putting a postcard in the newsagent’s window.

The Internet became two way though, the Internet became a conversation. It is no longer enough to just broadcast. The opportunity to engage, talk to the people who connect with you on Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, wherever it happens to be is immense. The opportunity to actually engage with other human beings is there and yet too many people are still using all of the tools available just to broadcast. Too many people think that we’re actually interested in hearing a constant and probably automated stream of adverts for them and their business.

I’m not the king of the Internet, everybody is free to use it however they want to. But ignoring that it has become two way, ignoring the conversation, ignoring the opportunity to engage, talk to, care about, the other people around you is missing the point and missing the massive potential that the Internet in 2010 gives us.

Time for another cup of tea. Got any comments on what I’ve got to say? I’m happy to hear them @NoRedBraces