The Pros and Cons of Social Media - Redux
On Scott Eagan's blog today, he talked about social media and the publishing industry. I follow his blog, but I also follow a large number of other publishing and writing blogs…and Twitter streams, etc.
His top points were:
Now, most of this is very true. These days it does seem necessary to have social campaigns for book promotion; people are more likely to buy books they've heard about, and they hear about things online. Likewise, once you've started, you do need to maintain a presence. Otherwise, everything you write is self-promotion because you've sold something. (Life would get pretty dull if your entire RSS reader screamed, "I have a new book out! Go to Amazon!") And, yes, you can't really delete things. The Wayback Machine and Google's Cached Pages will keep your posts up forever.
Let's start with maintaining online presence. As noted above, it's important to be part of the community. If people don't know who you are, then they have no personal context when you do say something. (If this were a professional blog, I'd have to be better about updating it.) But does constant maintenance mean that you need to put up a new blog post every day?
No. Copyblogger, a blog about blogging!, manages about 3-4 posts per week. Scott Eagan himself only does 5. MenWithPens gets in about 2-3. In professional blogging, you need to set expectations, but those expectations don't have to be daily. If you put up one really good post per week, and everyone knows that you always post at 2pm on Wednesday, isn't that just as good? Don't readers look forward to it and think, "Almost 2 pm! I wonder what he's going to say today."? Okay, one post a month might make you stale, but daily blogs aren't necessary. (Some people do these really well, though. Like Seth Godin and Nathan Bransford.)
Moving on from daily blogs, though, we get to his point about Twitter. There's a place where you want to have something every day. Maybe every other day because people understand that you have a life. But if you post one professional thing per day (e.g., link to a relevant news article, joining a relevant chat session like #yalitchat), then you're doing pretty well.
Platform is the key. Sure, on your professional blog you only want to talk about professional things. But on Twitter? There, it behooves you to be a real person. Twitter and most social media avenues are about engagement. (It's a buzz word, even.) When I was the face of social media at PopCap Games, one of my biggest surges in engagement came when I posted a pic of a sweet pair of boots I'd just bought. I thanked the commenters for their praise, and then those people continued to engage with me about the games (particularly Zuma; boot-lovers adore Zuma). They also remembered PopCap and considered us professional friends, which meant that we got more mentions on other people's streams, leading to more fans whom we could tell about upcoming sales, etc.
And Facebook! Facebook is all about pictures and silly games these days. That means that someone who friends you on Facebook really does want to see pictures of your dog, possibly your dog in a silly costume reading a book in your office. If you're not into that, maybe you shouldn't accept a person's friend request. Because of the growth of social media, everyone knows people who have a "real-life friends only" policy. Or, you could use the privacy settings for professional and personal stuff so that your personal posts don't show up in your professional contacts' News.
So, I guess this boils down to: Social media is about connecting. Some of what you say should be professional, and some should be personal, depending on your platform. How about 70/30? It's okay to decide that you don't want to be social with strangers, but those strangers may still want to interact with you. Because that's what social is about. If all you want are job-related status updates, you're not being social. Again, that's fine, but it's not the way the social crowd feels.
His top points were:
- Social media is "a necessary evil" for book promotion
- You need to maintain with daily posts and updates -- he struggles with 5 days a week of blog posts
- Be careful what you say
- Professionalism: "fine line between being informed and being a friend"; he doesn't "want to know about your dogs"
- Conclusion: The way to "properly" use social media is to "keep people informed, but that is it."
Now, most of this is very true. These days it does seem necessary to have social campaigns for book promotion; people are more likely to buy books they've heard about, and they hear about things online. Likewise, once you've started, you do need to maintain a presence. Otherwise, everything you write is self-promotion because you've sold something. (Life would get pretty dull if your entire RSS reader screamed, "I have a new book out! Go to Amazon!") And, yes, you can't really delete things. The Wayback Machine and Google's Cached Pages will keep your posts up forever.
Let's start with maintaining online presence. As noted above, it's important to be part of the community. If people don't know who you are, then they have no personal context when you do say something. (If this were a professional blog, I'd have to be better about updating it.) But does constant maintenance mean that you need to put up a new blog post every day?
No. Copyblogger, a blog about blogging!, manages about 3-4 posts per week. Scott Eagan himself only does 5. MenWithPens gets in about 2-3. In professional blogging, you need to set expectations, but those expectations don't have to be daily. If you put up one really good post per week, and everyone knows that you always post at 2pm on Wednesday, isn't that just as good? Don't readers look forward to it and think, "Almost 2 pm! I wonder what he's going to say today."? Okay, one post a month might make you stale, but daily blogs aren't necessary. (Some people do these really well, though. Like Seth Godin and Nathan Bransford.)
Moving on from daily blogs, though, we get to his point about Twitter. There's a place where you want to have something every day. Maybe every other day because people understand that you have a life. But if you post one professional thing per day (e.g., link to a relevant news article, joining a relevant chat session like #yalitchat), then you're doing pretty well.
Platform is the key. Sure, on your professional blog you only want to talk about professional things. But on Twitter? There, it behooves you to be a real person. Twitter and most social media avenues are about engagement. (It's a buzz word, even.) When I was the face of social media at PopCap Games, one of my biggest surges in engagement came when I posted a pic of a sweet pair of boots I'd just bought. I thanked the commenters for their praise, and then those people continued to engage with me about the games (particularly Zuma; boot-lovers adore Zuma). They also remembered PopCap and considered us professional friends, which meant that we got more mentions on other people's streams, leading to more fans whom we could tell about upcoming sales, etc.
And Facebook! Facebook is all about pictures and silly games these days. That means that someone who friends you on Facebook really does want to see pictures of your dog, possibly your dog in a silly costume reading a book in your office. If you're not into that, maybe you shouldn't accept a person's friend request. Because of the growth of social media, everyone knows people who have a "real-life friends only" policy. Or, you could use the privacy settings for professional and personal stuff so that your personal posts don't show up in your professional contacts' News.
So, I guess this boils down to: Social media is about connecting. Some of what you say should be professional, and some should be personal, depending on your platform. How about 70/30? It's okay to decide that you don't want to be social with strangers, but those strangers may still want to interact with you. Because that's what social is about. If all you want are job-related status updates, you're not being social. Again, that's fine, but it's not the way the social crowd feels.