The other day I started thinking about what Social Media looks like, and just for fun, I drew a flow chart of my online presence. It looked like this:
Most people participate in Social Media for a couple of reasons:
- maintaining relationships/connecting with folks they already know
- meeting new people (potential clients)
Let’s ignore your friends for now. If you were friends before Facebook, you’ll be friends when the next great thing has made it extinct. Let’s focus on how new people, potential clients, can find you.
For me, the vast majority of people ‘find’ me through my blog, and lesser so, through my website. Now, everyone has a preferred way of doing things. Some folks might be on Facebook but not Twitter, or vice-versa. If you want to maintain contact with someone new, you need to make it as easy as possible. So, it’s really important to have your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flikr connections in a place on your blog or website where people can easily click and find you in their preferred social network.
Let’s now look at it from the reverse. Say someone finds you on Twitter. You want to keep in contact with them. Yes, they’re following your Twitter stream, but make it easy for them to also subscribe to your blog, and become your Fan on Facebook.
I can’t tell you how many times I have gone to someone’s blog or website, and wanted to connect with them on another platform, and not been able to find that information easily. Many people import thier Twitter feed onto their blog or website, but don’t make their twitter handle known, or have a button which makes it easy for me to access them on Twitter.
Make sure, wherever you choose to have your presence on the web, that you make it easy for people to connect with you in other places.
UPDATE: See the second part of this post where there are specific technical directions.
Rebecca,
Love this. It’s more about allowing your people to connect with you the ways they’re comfortable connecting.
I guess I’ll have to bust out the drawing skills too. I’ve been batting around this idea of the Orange Octopus. Your hub is the body of the octopus. And all these other tools are the tentacles that pull people to the hub.
Gotta start writing. Thanks for the post.
Dave
A really great reminder. I think I have clear links to my various profiles, but I have never tested it to see how easy it is to find me on the various platforms. Thanks!
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