I consider myself an unlikely pitch-man for Facebook (or Twitter) but I do work with it and find “social media” useful as both a marketing tool and for personal connectivity with friends and family. So – here goes…
Basically, it’s just a way to share info with friends and family, easily.
I got into Facebook after an Internet company I worked for split and suddenly teams were divided and many friends were gone. Everybody had a Facebook account and kept connected through it, so I joined.
It has been a great way to keep in touch with people I used to work with for things like… there’s a get-together for lunch, who is looking for work that we might be interested in, when/where the next pub-night is going to be.
My “friends” network expanded as more-and-more old friends started joining. Recently the real old-timers I went to high-school with started joining and it’s been a veritable high-school reunion – but only with the ones I choose. I really miss parts of Detroit where I used to live and it’s great to hear from people who still live and go my old haunts.
Since much of my family has started using it, I can now show pictures of my son and new house, recent vacation etc. to family.
Twitter has come along and added a ‘micro-blogging’ dimension to social media. That is, instant, short messages. The way Twitter is open to the Google Index (almost no privacy to the web whatsoever) adds a dynamic. It’s become a great tool for “reputation control”. That is… in Online Marketing circles it means you can develop a Twitter account with your brand and relatively easily, have it rank in the top ten queries on Google.
That’s valuable when you have a public brand you want control over on the web. So, nasty editorials about your product are pushed down the hit-results in favor of your own message about who you are – your Twitter account!
Searching Twitter is a great way to put your finger on the pulse of what ‘people’ online are saying about anything. It’s a much more instant diagnosis than the basic Google query because, as its name suggests, “microblogging” is leaner, faster and wider spread than blogging.
I manage AudioholicsLive, Audioholics on Twitter. I’ll often search on A/V brands we’re reviewing and will spread the word about Audioholics by “following” anyone talking about those brands and @tweeting them about our editorial. This instantly tells them (via an email from Twitter) that AudioholicsLive is following them and if they check @tweets they’ll get that personal touch from Audioholics and know who/what we are.
I can also look for anyone tweeting about Audioholics, which trends from time to time, especially when AH puts out an article like that Lexicon/Oppo knock off.
Facebook has gotten into the ‘microblogging’ game with its ‘status updates’. So, if you have some inspiring words for your friends in the morning you can ‘status’ it and they can comment on it… or not. Sure, you’ll wade through silly stuff. Some of it from me
Yeah… I hear the detractors… It’s superfluous, often a waste of time. It can be mental candy floss. Even online marketers have a tendency to be self-deluded about it, citing high numbers of followers and friends as if it’s evidence of value (it is NOT). They’ll even scoff at anyone that doesn’t “get” social-media as an untutored alien. I think that’s a bogus attitude because I can completely relate to the people who don’t want any part of it. I think some marketing folks overvalue it all, but it definitely has some value.
But I must confess there’s an addictive quality. I am friends on FB with a wide assortment of people; from fellow Audioholics to high school chums to ex-ex-ex girlfriends (even my ex-wife), an old buddy who now lives in Dubai, people I knew from my own Army days who are stationed overseas. I find the breadth of the connectedness mindboggling – in an awesome, good way.
But be careful friends-ing ex-girlfriends and/or wives – it takes an enlightened approach.
