Once you start using social media, let people know. Sure, some people will find you on Facebook or Twitter or wherever, but it’s tactically much better to include your social media links, names, and addresses in other media, and across various forms of social media.
If you look at many blogs and websites you’ll notice an increasing tendency to list all the ways the person or company can be reached. Whether listed with text, web links (cooler and certainly more convenient), or (coolest of all) graphic icons, the inclusion of info about your social media presence accomplishes two things:
• Your contacts can find you easily on various media.
• You show the world you’re hip to new technology and communications modes.
In addition to putting info such as your Twitter handle, Facebook address, and blog URL on your website, in your e-mail signature, and on each other, don’t forget to include your various contact points on conventional media as well. Most everyone still uses paper business cards, some use brochures, and possibly someone somewhere still uses pre-printed letterhead. If you utilize those media, include your techno context points on them.
And don’t forget your advertising. If you advertise in print, on television or radio, figure out how to include your social media addresses there, too.
A word of caution about multiple social media sites; some espouse signing up on many social media sites. I’m not so sure about that.
• Keeping content fresh on a multitude of sites can be time-consuming (although there are utilities such as ping.fm that enable you to post the same content to multiple sites simultaneously.
• If you have a boatload of site URLs or handles, however, most won’t be able to fit all the info on a business card and it can look pretty silly even on a Web site or blog. I recently saw a clothing catalog where the company’s social media icons took 2/3rds of a page!
• If you are constantly on the lookout for new social media opportunities, maintaining the cross referencing between sites can take on a life of its own, to the point that you’ll never be caught up – especially if you use any print media.
The business purpose of social media is not to provide yet another way to keep yourself or someone else busy, but rather to support your company marketing program. If social media exists for it’s own sake and isn’t helping your company bottom line, question it. Certainly overdoing social media is downright silly and most likely wasteful.
