Mandy Vavrinak couldn't wait a minute longer to get this blog post up. So, while she's readying her blog, I happily hand over space for today's post:
During a Social Media Mastermind (@smmtulsa)
meeting recently, the group collectively tackled a member’s questions,
ones that are nearly universal these days: “Should my business be
involved in Social Media? If so, how? On which platforms?” There are
lots of posts and information out there geared toward lists of
questions, tips and guidelines to answer these questions. Some of my
favorites are
here and
here. That (a list of tips or pithy answers) isn’t the focus of this post.
The
situation discussed at our meeting involved an upcoming product launch
that represented a new, distinct market & accompanying brand for an
established parent company. One thing that struck me was that though
every member of the group was active (and I do mean ACTIVE) on Twitter,
none of us felt that it was an appropriate platform for the new brand
to utilize yet.
Why? Simply put,
Twitter is an immediate-response mechanism. Case in point... Did you
notice the way #iranelection dropped off trending topics, replaced by
all things Michael Jackson or Farrah Fawcett on the day they both died?
It wasn’t that the Twitterverse stopped caring about the situation in
Iran. It was just that more immediate news happened. As the dust began
to settle, #iranelections trended again. People and brands, outside of
celebrities, who build large, active followings on Twitter are ON
Twitter frequently. It’s the platform of immediacy. A one-way
conversation (I post to you, you answer a week later when you check in
on Twitter, I’ve posted 300 tweets since then...) isn’t a conversation.
It’s an unthreaded bulletin board.
Our
advice to our group member, and my advice to you, is don’t tweet until
there is something to tweet about (a full website, a product demo,
etc.). If you do your job and pique potential customers’ interest in
your product but give them no outlet for their interest, it will
quickly fade, like my recollection of our “conversation” that started
300 tweets ago. We advised her to start building LinkedIn contacts and
start a Facebook page where she can connect with current clients of the
parent company, and begin to seek referrals and do other prospecting to
build a base of people interested in news about the upcoming launch.
Since Facebook and LinkedIn conversations are threaded, there’s no
danger that posts and answers a week apart will be tiny voices
screaming in a wilderness of status updates.
Personally,
we all hope she gets on Twitter right away and spends the next few
months learning the ins and outs, the spoken and unspoken rules, and
connecting with people. Then, when her company’s product is ready...
activate another account and start to share the good news. Interested
persons can then take immediate action via the links or shared info in
her tweets. So, as you consider whether your business should use social
media, and if so, how; remember that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg,
Reddit, etc., are NOT equal. If the nature of the platform is real-time
and immediate, your approach better reflect that nature. – Mandy
Vavrinak (@Mandy_Vavrinak)
Mandy
Vavrinak is a career marketing pro and a believer in the power of
connections. Using social media to broaden those connections has been a
natural extension. Follow her on Twitter: @Mandy_Vavrinak or connect on
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mandy.vavrinak
