Matt Baril

If you're interested in Social Media, you've most likely come across many blog posts on dos, don'ts, and "rules" about Social Media. I find these very interesting, because there seems to be a general consensus on some of these "rules" even though there are very successful blogs that don't follow any of them. Here's the first part of a two-part article of 10 rules that I think come up the most often in blog articles and which I hate the most. My point is not that all Social Media rules are ridiculous, but that rules are made to be broken, and you shouldn't pay too much attention to them.

1. Publish often

Publishing often has the advantage of giving your blog a better ranking on Google as well as giving you the edge as far as first impression goes. What it doesn't give you though, is high quality content. When you post an article every day, you can't have thought it through all the time. I followed high profile bloggers such as Chris Brogan and Seth Godin for a few months, and these people post every single day. Although these 2 bloggers deserve kudos for the hard work they do and everything they have contributed to their communities/tribes, they can't keep up with great articles indefinitely by publishing everyday. We could also mention the kind of sacrifices it requires on a personal level to write 7 articles a week, for free. You can also read an interesting comment from Mike who raised an interesting point about posting less being not so much of an issue with RSS feeds nowadays in a previous post here.

Famous counter example: As an example Dosh Dosh is a successful and influential blog that publishes rarely, but has top quality content and long articles.

2. Engage people in a conversation

Most people follow you or comment on your posts with the hope you'll follow back or that their comment will draw traffic to their blog. This is not true 100% of the time, but I'd say the 80/20 rule would apply here: 20% or less of your followers are real fans and create 80% or more of the valuable and relevant content such as questions, ideas, links, etc. Trying to engage a conversation is a noble cause, but it won't happen by itself and it's most likely to take a lot of time before you're having a real conversations with your "fans". Keep trying to get as much feedback as you can, but if you're like 80% of us, replying to your fans won't take you all day.

Famous counter example: Seth Godin doesn't even allow comments on his blog which basically kills the idea of having a conversation and he still runs the most read blog on marketing in the world.

3. Be available, all the time

Chris Brogan is a blogger I really admire and who has done a lot for his community and he's probably the most available person in the world, which means that he sleeps 4 hours a day. He will try to reply to all the emails, tweets, facebook, friendfeed, linkedin, etc, he can possibly receive. I can't imagine the burden of having to be available all the time and the different consequences it can have on your personal life. I'm a strong believer in First Things First (affiliate link) and the power of prioritizing your life based on your roles (parent, employee, friend, son/daughter, etc.). Not everything that is urgent is important, and if it's not important, it should not get your attention.

Famous counter example: Let me reuse the Seth Godin no comment example here and make sure your read this blog post about what happens when you unplug. Someone also brought up no-tech Sundays, an idea I love and that I sometimes do.

4. Publish short posts, or break a long one into many smaller posts

I think it really depends of the audience you're targeting. I find my "true fans" to read all my posts even the very long ones and I've actually had more success with my longest posts. I have short posts for new comers and longer posts for regular visitors who know me better and have read some of my previous posts. If you publish less often, but try to have a higher quality, then length becomes almost irrelevant.

Famous counter example: Let me use Dosh Dosh as an example again, you'll notice that the typical post is much longer than average blog post.

5. Add value

What does that mean anyways? It's by far the most overused expression in Social Media right now, there is no article you can possibly read without having the words "adding value". First of all, I wish I knew what they meant by value here, and second of all it seems to be derived from business value. I believe a blog is all about experience and no so much about the value you add, but the emotion you can create. That might be the new direction my blog will take… hhhmmm

Famous counter example: One blog that has been very successful and which doesn't, in my view, add value is PostSecret. It might be argued that it entertains, but I don't really see the value it adds. Another blog that could be arguably added to this list is the onion (22nd on Technorati ranking) who reports humorous fake news.

Idea #12 Social Media tool to help crowds gather, get organised, communicate and recognize people

As I was walking down the streets of Vancouver tonight, right after the Olympics opening ceremony, I was thinking about how clueless we were about where to go next. People followed each other and were going from one street to another. Of course Twitter and even Facebook and emails can help and make communicating and organizing a crowd easier, but what if we had our own complete tool for that? A tool where it'd be easy to set and find a location. People could listen to the leaders or read their messages directly, but interaction within the crowd would also be encouraged. Only the messages from the organizers and other people from the crowd wouldn't get mixed up. The t tool would have to make recognizing people in real life easy in order to encourage social interaction and bonding. Votes could be cast, time could be set, pictures and videos could be added. In summary, it would be a tool that could make gathering a crowd easier and sharing information on the spot easy, timely and cheap.

Idea #3 Social Media consulting firm for SMBs. Offer training, reports, action plan, viral marketing

This one can be risky since so many people are self-acclaimed Social Media gurus or Social Media experts only because they have 10,000 followers on Twitter or a facebook account. What I'm thinking of here, is a real business set up by people with real experience with using Social Media in a business context, and with tangible results. There is a hype around Social Media and that strangely reminds me of the heydays when all businesses were setting up websites and suddenly, average Joes became professional webmasters overnight. The hype will die down one day or another, but just like websites, the idea of Social Media will stick around. Real Social Media experts seem to focus mainly on big firms in an international context, I say go local, target the small and medium firms. SMBs are easy to access, they're already looking for your help, you can have many contracts at once, you can make your own experiments and mistakes since you haven't much to lose and everything to gain. If you do fail, then make sure you don't risk your customer's reputation and compensate them for screwing up!

It seems like there is a a certain resistance towards Social Media that's coming from a growing number of professionals in regards with the usefulness of belonging and using Social Networks. I've heard, and you probably did too, 3 main arguments against Social Networking websites:

1. Privacy concerns
2. Time commitment required to really tap into the power of Social Networks
3. Addictive effect of most Social Media tools – Time waster

These are all, to some level, justified and yes Social Networking brings its own challenges, but one should realize that these 3 "weaknesses" are people related. In other words you are the problem and not Social Networks per say: you decide what information goes on your profile, you decide how much time you spend networking, and you let yourself spend way too much time on Social Networking Websites. Instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water, professionals should work at finding a balance between Social Media and their career and lives.

There are at least 5 top reasons why professionals cannot afford not to join these Social Networks:

1. If you're not online, you don't exist

Whether you like it or not, if you're a professional, you're also a brand and more exposure can lead to a better reputation, increased credibility/authority and more contracts or a better job. People rely on the web for most of the information they need, and if you're not there you just don't exist. If people have a discussion about a topic you have expertise in but you're not there, you don't exist. There is so much information delivered to so many people with traditional marketing that the sign you bought at the bus stop is not likely to do you much good. Social Media will not kill traditional marketing, but for people operating in niches it just doesn't make any sense to buy expensive advertising with low efficiency rates. People's attention span for advertising is decreasing and you're energy would be better spent advertising to people who actually want to hear from you.

2. It's not what you know, but who you know

I think this one is obvious, there are millions of people using LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and odds are that a few thousands are people with similar interests as you, or could be potential customers/employers. You can get business leads, you can grow your customer base, you can learn from the people you connect with. You can get a better understanding of what the people you connect with want and what they're looking for. More connections with more people means you know more, you understand better and you're on top of the game. Being actively connected with hundreds of people in your industry will bring opportunities you could never have expected.

3. Keep your hundred of connections alive

There is so many people you can reach and keep in touch with without Social Media tools. Emails, phone calls, letters, pigeons all require a lot of time and energy. How many people can you actively and seriously keep in touch with without Social Media? 50? 75? You need to actively be involved in order to get the information from them and therefore keep these connections and their potential leads alive. With Social Networks, the information comes to you instead of you going after the information. Your reach will be much broader and you'll be closer to any of connections than ever before. The mistake people shouldn't make here is that you don't have to give up emails and phone calls to use Social Media. Keep these more traditional time consuming methods for your top connections.

4. A time saver, not a time waster

Things are shifting and you can now easily have 300+ active connections and keep track of what they're doing, how they're doing and the business opportunities they offer. Clicking a like button or commenting "Hey! Nice job, congrats!" doesn't require much time, but keeps that connection alive. People who claim Social Media is a big time waster don't understand it. I challenge you to keep 300 connections with emails and phone calls. Social Networks take time because we're connected to so many more people. Chances are that most of the time you're emailing people instead of calling them as it was common place 20 years ago, social media does the same by decreasing the amount of emails you write and receive. Don't get me wrong, emails and phone calls will always be there, but they'll be kept for top connections as they take more time.

5. Keeps you in the loop

LinkedIn and Facebook have an event feature, Twitter has created a new social phenomenon called Tweetup, and unconferences are becoming more common. The fact is that Social Media might be in the virtual world, but it'll lead to more real world connections and will help expanding your real world network. People organize themselves with online tools, and once again if you're not there you don't exist and won't be invited. Social Networks also help you being on top of what's happening and keeps you in the know with important information: birthdays in Facebook, most interesting articles of the day with Twitter and professional networking events with LinkedIn are just a few examples.

Social Media provides you with everything you need to know, and it's up to you whether or not you want to listen to Social Media. I understand some people just hate Social Media and cannot be convinced and I'd like to know why. If you know one of these people, send them this article so they get a chance to share what they have to say. What about you? Do you like or hate Social Media?

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Facebook is a fantastic tool! It’s crazy everything you can find out about people you think you know… This just hit me today while I was about to send a message to a friend of mine! Pretty troubling…