It’s a fact that the voice of many outweighs the voice of a few in most cases (Canadian politics and policies aside). Social media is definitely the outlet for our collective online voices to express opinions, thoughts and ideas on everything and anything. Love it or hate it, social media’s here to stay – at least in some form – and everyone’s an expert at something and has an opinion on everything.
Previous posts in my Content series have dealt with figuring out why you want content, publishing frequency, analyzing successes and failures, and how you’re going to keep on top of it all (links to the previous posts are at the bottom of this entry). Now we’re onto sharing your content with the world and getting your stuff looked at.
Step 4: The Role of Social Media
By now, I don’t think there are many people out there who don’t know what Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are, especially if they’re in business. Even if they’re only a quarter-assed techie who owns a computer to simply check email and browse the web now and then, it’s hard not to stumble across someone yakking about social media and the importance of online networking. (This post isn’t a how-to tutorial, so if you’re new to using social media for business go and fire up Google before continuing – there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ‘social media 101’ articles on the web that will help you get started.)
Now that you’ve taken a long, hard look at your past content successes or failures and developed a content strategy and editorial calendar, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to share it with the world and how social media can or can’t help.
That’s right: mainstream social media may NOT be able to get your content the eyeballs you want.
Why? Because your target audience(s) may hang out somewhere other than the Big 3 (FB, Twitter, & LI). Particularly if you market and sell highly-specialized products or services, you may find the people you want to reach hang out at online forums or discussion boards rather than the main networking sites. It’s kind of like assuming that all people shop for clothing at The Gap and Banana Republic, when some actually order from Lands End and Spiegel.
In order to effectively share your content, you need to first figure out where your audience’s attention is and where they interact online. Then go hang out with them. Interact and communicate, start discussions about industry issues or hot topics. Pick a fight or be a shit-disturber to get people talking – but don’t give them a sales pitch. Do that, and you instantly lose credibility and the trust factor drops significantly. Plus, you might get black-balled by the site’s facilitators. (OK, so this paragraph falls into the ‘how-to’ category, shame on me)
Just hang out and network with the participants for a while, learning about them and their interests, pet peeves and desires. This bit of market research just might be one of your best investments. Don’t be afraid to defend yourself, either – as long as you can step up and support your argument.
Regardless of where your audience and target market resides online, it’s a good idea to determine how large a role you want your social game to play in distributing your content. Is it your sole traffic-generator, or are you integrating it with other methods, like email marketing?
Remember, most content doesn’t go viral, so if your content isn’t The Shit on YouTube or getting volleyed around on Twitter, don’t sweat it. Share a piece of it now, a piece of it later, and don’t be afraid to re-hash and re-purpose content. Sometimes giving archived content a facelift can find it new legs.
Do you have content-sharing success or failures you’d like to share with others? Leave a comment below (yeah, you can do it anonymously) – we all love learning from others:)
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