Social Media and The Sounds of Silence

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This is part two for part one click here. 

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again…

Saw an interesting post on Google+ two days ago. The poster had written a blog on out-of-the-box advertising.  Hey, I just wrote something on that myself. So I read her article. And left a comment with the link to my article so that she could see my thoughts on the subject and we could have a discussion on it.

Alas, that was not to be.

But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

She never commented on either my comment or the other one that was left there by someone else. However, the next day, she made two fresh posts. So we never did have that enlightening discussion. Her profile information reveals that she is a Social Media Director. Apparently, she is a very quiet one who is missing the whole point of what social media is all about!

But this article is not about checking out the brilliance of Social Media Directors and googling candidates prior to hiring to see if they really do understand their craft. This is about being quiet. And it just happened to me again. A European journalist made a compelling post and I replied. Perhaps he went to bed early since he’s nine hours ahead of me?  This is social media darkness, my old friend!

In both cases, I offered up my input in an effort to engage. Feeling rather let down now.
Here’s the lesson learned. If you’re going to post something that is sure to spark a discussion why not stick around and participate in it? Lack of response on your part doesn’t make you look very stellar, now does it?

I've said it before. Social Media is meant to be engaging. A poster, who may be a business owner or representing a company, has an opportunity to display their understanding and knowledge on the subject they’ve posted about simply by replying intelligently and demonstrating just that. This, in turn, could lead to potential sales down the road; remember, social media is NOT a sales tool but plants the awareness seed. Why pass up an opportunity?

Does this make sense? It does to me. Simply put, you’ll never see me post something then walk away for two days. If I can’t be available to you, I won’t post. That’s fair, right? And hey, wait a minute! Do these folks have smart phones? It’s so easy to keep your eyes on the pulse while you’re on the go or hanging on the beach. If you chose to do so.

Silence is NOT Golden.

Simon & Garfunkel sang about the Sounds of Silence. This video is a live acoustic clip from early in their career.

Are You Committing Twitter Snobbery?

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“I won’t follow anyone back on Twitter who doesn't have a lot of followers.” A friend made this statement to me a while ago.

Is he seeing Twitter as a numbers game or assuming that this person doesn’t know what they’re doing out there?

It’s definitely not a numbers game, but a matter of how you choose to manage your account. Couple of options:

• Following back most everyone: Your public timeline will be messy though, however, you can control the quality of what you see through lists.

• Being targeted towards only those in your industry and/or those tweeps who would be genuinely interested in your product or service. This works, but do remember that you’ll have less reach overall; fewer replies, fewer retweets.

Don’t assume that they don’t know what they’re doing. Granted, that could be the case, however, keep in mind that people are joining Twitter every day and getting their feet wet. They may only have a few hundred followers, but do check them out. Some things to look for:

• A profile photo, not an egg.
• A full bio of who they are and what they do.
• Intelligent and engaging tweets. Okay to have some humorous ones too!
• A URL to a website that is professional and well organized.
• Lack of spammy tweets. Sharing the URL to your Facebook page is not spammy, but touting teeth whiteners is.
• They’re not a bot.
• Their tweets are interesting to you.
• They’re tweeting on a regular basis; in other words, they’re active and not simply just gathering followers.

Now, about giving them the benefit of the doubt, if they’re newbies, they may not be using Twitter protocol as they should be. I made two incredible blunders when I first joined Twitter. One gent firmly but politely corrected me on one of them; it may have been not using @ when replying. I remember feeling very small, but grateful that he took the time to tell me.

I recommend correcting someone via a DM. Save them a little embarrassment. Unfortunately a lot of people just dive into Twitter and try to swim without gaining the knowledge of what it’s about or formulating any strategy first. And many will drop off quickly; others will paddle ahead and some may even start doing the butterfly stroke.

So, what did I say to my friend after he made that statement?

"Give them a break; remember, you were once just starting out too and I'm sure you wouldn't have appreciated that kind of attitude while you were getting your feet wet"

‘Nuff said.

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