As discussed many times, it’s important for entrepreneurs and individuals to link their personal social media profiles on corporate sites, on their email signatures and into their day to day activities.
Too much of anything is a bad thing?
But this brings up an important question – is there a time when a brand is too integrated with social media? And the answer is YES – there are definitely times your brand can be too integrated with social media. Your brand is too integrated with social media if:
Your brand is registered on every single new social media site, but you have no activity on any.- When people find your brand on any random non Facebook/Twitter social media site, your presence is underwhelming.
- An initial excitement comes to your brand’s presence on minor social media sites, but you find it difficult to keep content regularly updated.
- You actively promote social media presences that you do not regularly update or use.
- Your brand’s social media presence doesn’t accurately represent your brand’s purpose of mission.
- People are confused by the actual meaning/purpose of your brand on 3rd party social media sites.
- You do not regularly update your blog or website links on 3rd party social media sites.
If any of these characteristics seem familiar – it doesn’t mean you should stop with social media.
Instead, you should re-evaluate how your brand’s goals align with your social media goals. And realistically evaluate the time and effort required to have a successful social media presence. Figure out what is the best use of your time/energy in building your brand, and continue with that strategy.
You do not want to be involved with a plethora of social media sites and have a poor representation of your brand – that just defeats the purpose of all the hard work you put in to building it.
Author:
Ben Cathers is the co-founder of InstantSocial.com – an outsourced social media provider (smo). He is the co-founder of three startups before he was 19 years old. Ben is the author of Conversations with Teen Entrepreneurs and was named in 2005 by CNN as a member of “America’s Bright Future.” Ben has been quoted/featured in the Wall Street Journal, FOX News, ABC News, CBS News, Yahoo! Internet Life, The London Sunday Times and in over 40 different publications. He can be followed on Twitter at @bencathers
Loading ...
There are some good points here, that an underwhelming presence on a social media platform is a bad thing is very true. However, I would let people know that there are many tools out there to help with this. Having a presence on many social media channels is a good thing, not only for exposure, but more importantly for SEO and link building opportunities. Using a service like onlywire.com or ping.fm gives you the ability to update all of your social media platforms (and many you may have never heard of) in one place making the task much much more manageable.
Well said! Social media should be about quality not quantity. A person can go to a site and if you’re not there they will think you may have closed up shop or don’t care to connect. I don’t post everything I think on Twitter, I want to create important readable information. I would hate for someone to come to my site and scan and move on.
Thanks for the information.
this is what i’m looking for..nice post
I definitely agree that quality is much more important than quantity. A while back, I began compiling a list of social sites that i ran across – mostly that were offered on blogs to share. I came up with approximately 300. Every week I investigate one or two to keep up, but there is no way to have a quality presence on all of them. The best bet is to maintain quality branding on the most popular, but stay up on the next tier, you never know what will be the next wave.
Lew Sauder, Author, Consulting 101: 101 Tips For Success in Consulting (www.Consulting101Book.com)
Great advice, Ben. It’s important to be present in social media, but in the right way. Too many people use social media without knowing its real purpose. Your suggestion to revaluate your brand’s social media presence is a great one. Finding the perfect balance of social media use is important. Social media can be a great tool, when used properly.
[...] latest blog post for PBB – enjoy! TweetFacebookStumbleUponDiggDelicious [...]