The way that you’re managing your presence online (or not managing it, heaven forbid!) is totally and utterly incorrect. You think I’m joking? Your blog? Bad, bad, bad. Your Twitter? Pathetic. Facebook? You’re doing what? And LinkedIn? Terrible. In fact, everything you’re doing isn’t any good.
At least to someone.
Look, I’m no dummy. I know what I like and what I don’t like. I’ll share my opinion because this is my dumb blog. But let’s not pretend that amounts to a hill of beans in this crazy world. It’s one man’s opinion, you can take it or leave it.
Want to know how I’ve screwed up (at least, by someone else’s take)?
- I follow too many people on Twitter
- I follow too few people on Twitter
- I don’t have a consistent policy about following people on Facebook
- I don’t make lists of people on Facebook
- I don’t have my privacy settings right on Facebook
- My LinkedIn profile isn’t updated for the work I do now
- I don’t run LinkedIn groups the right way
- I don’t blog often enough
- I created a “posse” on Facebook
People, this is insanity. There are some legitimate best practices out there and some obvious ethical boundaries but you’re telling me there is some sort of standard formula for how many people I should follow on Twitter or how I should determine if someone is a friend on Facebook? It is this sort of psychoanalyzing of an emerging technology that stops people from really buying into and adopting social media (simply creating an account doesn’t count).
So when I get asked by people and companies to show them how social media is “done”, I simply tell them to stop obsessing over best practices and start observing what other people and companies are doing. If you like what they are doing, copy them and you’re probably 90% of the way there (the other 10% is you). If you don’t like what they are doing, don’t do what they do.
It sounds simplistic and stupid but it isn’t.
Being wrong is essential to using social media the right way. If you aren’t doing something a guru or expert says you shouldn’t, you aren’t doing social media at all. It would be a boring, homogenized place out here if all you did was follow the rules.
January 6, 2011 at 7:21 am
If we all agreed on what was best, we’d live in a fairly boring place. The great thing about social is that it is used so differently by so many people. You’ve written a necessary post sir.
January 6, 2011 at 7:27 am
Lance, I think it’s clear that by doing this post that you are doing it wrong. For shame Lance, for shame! (giggle)
January 6, 2011 at 7:28 am
I knew that posse was a bad idea…
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January 6, 2011 at 8:10 am
Getting past denial and to acceptance in one post… you are The Man.
Happy New Year
January 6, 2011 at 8:13 am
And I am a failure because I did not correctly type my blog URL in my reply.
January 6, 2011 at 8:50 am
That’s a failure that can be fixed. Happy New Year, Paul.
January 6, 2011 at 9:29 am
Good post Lance. Just because I can make you look good online doesn’t mean I have to as well. Boo to the boundary.
January 7, 2011 at 12:07 pm
As someone who does a lot of social media correcting, I’ve slowly adopted the stance that there isn’t “wrong,” but there is better.
Still, wrong gets more page views.
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January 19, 2011 at 9:48 am
I call them the blog police. Or the twitter police. Or the LinkedIn police and so on and so on. In fact its the social media police. Lets be honest, they only write blog posts pointing out what we are doing wrong simply because it gets more views.
Social is my choice and i particularly hate people telling others how they should blog. Cut the crap and stop pontificating people. Ill say what i like and use whatever headline i like. Period!
Nice post, thanks for sharing Lance.
January 19, 2011 at 10:52 am
I agree, by and large there is no wrong or right way. We’re all different, we all have different likes, dislikes etc. Me? I can’t stand the inanity of Facebook. I don’t believe that social recruiting will ever take off to any great degree (people already know where to look for jobs) other than for the household names who could write a job ad on the back of a cigarette packet and get a deluge of response. I think Quora is a waste of time, even if I had enough time to answer some of their dumb questions.
My advice would be, find your own niche, what makes you comfortable. Don;t chase numbers for numbers sake. I sometimes click on a Twitter account and see the person has 15,000 followers. How many do they know or interact with? I actively block anyone who tries to follow me but only tweets quotes or money making scams or has no followers or never tweets. it’s a jungle out there and we’re all still hacking our way through the creepers (and creeps). The path you choose to take is strictly down to you. Don’t let any self-appointed ‘guru’ tell you otherwise.
January 29, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Lance,
I agree! Every business, just like every person, is different and works best under its own personalized structure. The world of social media offers a new platform for anyone involved in the business of selling a product, and the most effective marketing formula for any one company can only be found through trial and error by the employees themselves. Good read!
-Jess
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February 1, 2011 at 9:21 pm
I had close to this EXACT conversation with another blogger the other day.
I lose my freaking MIND when I see those terse “what you must be doing with social media” tutorials flying up on Twitter every week (yes, and of course, I click into them and read them… and then just get more annoyed…at both myself for clicking, and the author for promoting such horseshit.)
It’s nearly as preposterous as it would be to suggest to a brick and mortar business the ONE way they should set up shop and run their corporation.
Yet… so many many people listen. Thank you, Lance, for fighting vanilla.
Cheers, Jenny Foss