Mar 14, 2011 Staff

Balance Your Social Media Strategy


If you're trying to establish yourself as a thought leader and using micromedia (i.e. Twitter) as your primary tool, you need to add longer content to the mix. Jeremiah Owyang explains why Twitter, which he equates to "Shish Kabob", isn't enough. You need to add "Steak", in the form of blog posts, whitepapers, presentations, and other, "meatier" content.

Twitter has become overloaded. We consume smaller bits of information in greater quantity, and less long-form content. Tweets quickly lose value, given that they are hard to find after publishing, and searching old tweets can be difficult and frustrating. Investing a lot of time into Twitter is not a good investment. Also, given the design of Twitter, tweeting with great frequency is the only way to stay top of mind. Quality isn't a factor. Twitter is no longer enough.

Other tools are more robust for thought leadership, archiving content, sharing and connecting. Using them in an integrated fashion is key. (If you tweet 20 times a day, you should have just blogged).

Consider the following ways to add "Steaks" to your menu:

Appetizers: Source information in Q&A sites and Communities
  • Valuable in finding out where you need to focus your research, thought leadership and product roadmap
  • Trigger discussions, share your own knowledge, identify contacts
Entice The Market: Infographics are the New White Papers
  • Infographics are a key way to convey meaningful data to short consumption types and are easy to spread
Feed the Information Starved Slideshare Community
  • This tool has a thriving community already, so releasing higher quality content there makes sense
The Main Meal: Your Blog is an Central Platform, Use it Judiciously
  • Your blog is your master archive tool
  • Blog content is easier to find
  • Centralized in a location closer to your own owned domain
Finish With Dessert: Videos, While Limited In Consumption, Have High Engagement
  • Requires a lot of focus, but if you’re engaged, it’s the highest fidelity distribution on the web
  • Another permanent archive
To regain social media balance, send fewer but higher quality tweets. Other media continues to evolve. Don't ignore it.

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Published by Staff March 14, 2011