Friday, January 4, 2013

All About U = Unfollow by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

Social Media is a wonderful marketing tool, but it is useless when used ineffectively. Marketers must remember that Social Media is more about networking than advertising, discussions than blasting, asking than demanding, and personality than traditional business. The moment your Social Media becomes all about you or your business, is the moment you've lost the upswing direction toward your goals and you will start spinning around in Social Media circles worse than a bottle cap that will eventually come to a grinding halt.

You need to give people a reason to follow and many more reasons to keep following.

Here are a few tips when trying to decide what to post and retweet.

If it is something that will be educational, informative, humorous, fun, appreciated, motivational, and inspiring--share it.

Educate and Inform
When possible, post original content from you and/or your organization. I suggest at least 2 original posts each week, but keep in mind that it doesn't always have to be original content from you. If you see an informative post that a competitor, friend, or client posted, hit the "share" button or "retweet" it.

You might be wondering, from a competitor? Really? The answer is, a resounding yes. Not only will it still be appreciated, but they might later return the favor. Your followers or customers will feel like they can trust you even more, because they will know that you will not withhold good information from them--even if it comes from a competitor. You need to establish this trust. It is a MUST in any relationship. While you need to have a couple of original posts each week, remember that even if some of the info isn't your original content, people will remember that they still got it from you. This will prompt them to follow, since you are being informative.

Provide Humor and Fun 
People appreciate a little good humor throughout their day. They need to laugh and smile. This develops fellowship, another MUST in any relationship. Humorous posts, videos and photos are often retweeted and shared more than any other type of content. It develops insight into your personality and the culture of your business. It may have something to do with your business and/or product or it may have nothing to do with it at all. It's okay. Keep in mind that there is "good" humor and there is "bad" humor. Before sharing, always take a moment to consider if it is something that could be taken the wrong way, hurt someone's feelings, or show negativity. If so, don't share it.

Share Good Causes and Promote Goodwill
Others will appreciate your business if you are willing to share and retweet posts that promote nonprofit causes, community services, new product campaigns, freebies and contests, and anything that will promote goodwill toward others. When national disasters strike or tragedy happens in your industry or local area, extend sympathy. This can be done without taking sides, or getting into politics or religion. Be human, and if you are representing a business, make sure your customers know that your business cares about people. It will help remind them that there are people behind the scenes of your business who have emotions and feelings. This part of your personality builds appreciation in others.

Be Motivational and Inspiring
Sharing inspirational quotes can do great wonders to remind people to not give up, to take that extra step, to be different, daring and bold. Be positive and promote ideas that will motivate others. Don't forget that images and videos can be just as inspiring.

If you remember to sprinkle in your announcements, events, discounts, sales, and promotions among other posts that are not all about you and your business, people will follow you. And because you give them personal value in sharing what is helpful and important to them, they will continue to follow, and thereby, see the other things you REALLY want them to see.


7 comments:

Sylvia A, Nash said...

Thank you for such a timely post--timely for me anyway. I've just recently jumped into Twitter. I was a little apprehensive and a little excited and a lot in the dark about how to "socialize."

I learned rather quickly one thing not to do. Someone totally unknown to me "followed" me. I checked them out and thought, "Okay, they seem interesting, and I would be happy to reciprocate." So I followed them.

But when I kept being bombarded with over 50 tweets one right after the other from this one person in less than two hours time, I reconsidered the follow!

I had to page down through all of these tweets to see if I had any other tweets from anybody! I don't even know if these tweets were interesting, because after the first two or three, I stopped reading them.

So for me, I decided the old adage, "All things in moderation," applied equally well to tweeting.

Thank you for the tips on things to do!

Jennifer Taylor said...

Syliva, Twitter is a different culture and climate than Facebook and other social media sites. It is more a news resources than a social interaction, but social interaction does take place. People on Twitter will tolerate more tweets per day than people on FB will tolerate posts in a day. For this reason, I do not recommend linking your Twitter acct to your FB acct.

My Twitter feed will tweet 10-15 tweets per day and more if I have a campaign going for a contest or book launch. I keep my FB posts down to 3-4 per day. Out of those daily posts 2-3 of those posts are original content I have written from blogs and maybe 2-3 personal updates per week. Does this make sense? Let me know if it doesn't and if you have questions.

Unknown said...

Social media also has some serious pitfalls if someone else is using it incorrectly!
I just had my FB account hacked/spammed AGAIN and had to wave the white flag. I deactivated it and started a new one under a secret identity. Okay, I used my middle name this time. :)

I was getting into a great groove linking my blog posts with FB and Twitter and my numbers were climbing each week.
Now? Meh, we'll see.
Rather frustrating to say the least!!

Thankfully, the blog is doing well and is finding its own niche and feel.
And we're even going to learn a new word every other week!! It'll be like PBS, without the Abbey.

Sylvia A, Nash said...

Thanks, Jennifer, for sharing that. I definitely don't have my FB account linked to my Twitter account! But then I use FB for friends and family only and don't have a "page" yet.

I do wonder, though, would you not consider over 50 tweets in less than 2 hours a little excessive? I couldn't tell you what all of them said, but they weren't like updates on a contest or anything. They were just comments--Bible verses, retweets, sayings, that kind of thing.

When I did my free downloads of my e-book last weekend, I sent out I think 4 tweets total and was afraid I was sending too many! :-) You can see why 50+ in 2 hrs sort of freaked me out! I do have a lot to learn about this Twitter thing, though!

Unknown said...

Hi Sylvia, I had one person on Twitter that I was following who literally tweeted every 5 minutes ALL DAY!! I actually sat in front of my computer, clicked on her name and counted out how often she tweeted, it ranged from 4 to 5 minutes. Whether or not the comments were valuable, heck, they could have even been Swiss bank account numbers, but who pays attention to a near constant stream of talk?

I tweet when I can and I just don't see the value in it until I'm on the wagon riding into PubTown.

If you analyse the big names on Twitter, they space out their tweets and say or offer something valuable or interesting, and the really good ones are willing to share their tweets with worthy causes and important issues.

Jennifer Taylor said...

Jennifer, Something happened to my first FB acct 3 months b4 my debut novel released. I had to start a brand new FB acct all over from scratch. Now I'm very careful, play no 3rd party games, and don't click on anything that looks suspicious. It's hard to know what caused it, but being more careful has proven to be better. I hope u don't have any other issues.

Jennifer Taylor said...

Oh, I forgot to say that I do consider 50 tweets in 2 hrs from one person to be too excessive.