No bullshit social publishing news and opinions. Follow Brandon.
The Background
I filled out a survery this weekend for Peter Shankman’s Help A Reporter Out (HARO). There was a section on the survey for HARO complaints / criticsm, and so I included the following complaint: Too many “experts”. In particular, too many “social media experts.”
I was happy to see this post on Peter’s blog today about whether or not your “social media expert” is really an expert. Hint: They’re probably not.
The Issue
It’s a great post, but there’s one point I have a problem with …
5. Everything they learned about social media they learned by reading blog posts (i.e. no application). You can learn a ton about sex from reading Kinsey’s manuals, but I’d still rather be with someone who has some practical experience.
The Point
Everything you need to know to be a “social media” expert or even a damn good social publisher can be learned by reading a blog. Watch:
1. Advise your clients to be authentic, no matter what the situation.
2. Advise your clients to allow their employees to use social publishing on behalf of the company (Scott Monty at Ford and Agent M at Marvel are fantastic guys and great examples of this.)
3. Advise your clients to have no limitation on employee use of social media.
4. PPC is dead*. The Digg Effect has no long term benefit.
*Dead as in- You don’t neccesarily need it, but if you have the budget, you should consider using it. More on this one later in our SEO section.
5. You can’t cheat your way to gain new friends on a social network, you have to be patient, put the time in, create good content (good as in it’s honest, useful, and fun), and jump on opportunities when they come.
6. SEO is still extremley valuable (because how else are people going to find and tweet about your stuff?)
SEO Basics: Title of ten words or less, keep the content scannable, write for humans, and always fill out your description tags.
7. Google Analytics is free.
8. So is Google Alerts, Backtype, Tweet Beep, and Friendfeed. Friendfeed archives everything that comes into it and makes it searchable. (P.S. If you’re not on Friendfeed yet, get there. It’s the next Google. It is not the next Twitter.)
9. Get on Facebook now because it is declining in value. Pretty soon it won’t be worth the effort.
10. Get on Twitter now for similar reasons. Twitter won’t decline in value as a publishing tool, but it will become more of a utility than a network like email.
P.S. Use Bit.ly since it provides you with click count and further analytics. Do not use services that force users to have an i-frame on the screen. No one likes it.
11. Very few things go viral without some sort of financial help (either through an ad buy on an aggregator website or a paid placement on a high traffic website like College Humor). Don’t bother trying to go viral.
12. Empower your customers to talk about you and easily share your content. Don’t make them think.
13. Don’t use flash or javascript.
14. Yes. You still need a website.
15. Blogs are not dead, they’re just easier. Get on Posterous.
16. Don’t use everything. Find one or two social networks and focus on them.
17. Find the emerging social networks like Brightkite and get on there before everyone else does.
18. Don’t listen to the Web 2.0 analysists, they’re usually wrong.
19. Be interactive. Every email, every Tweet (within reason) should receive (some kind of) response.
20. Don’t play with the trolls. Just delete their comments and block them as they show up.
21. Never send a blogger or other social publisher your press release.
(Note: Trolls are not customers, and there is a difference between an irate customer and a Troll. In time, and with the proper knowledge of your customers, you’ll be able to spot the difference.)
This is not comprehensive. And I’m not an expert (nor do I want to be), but my point here is that everything you need to know about social media can be read and understood from reading a blog post.
