Social Media Networking Marketing

I've been Online for a long time as well.

There have been periods of ups and downs with my engagement Online, and notably, they correspond to ebb and flows of life in general. Even with my work having been involved with an Online audience since 2005, before Social Media and Engagement became the buzzwords, I've had my ups and downs. At times, my personal life and mood would see me withdraw, and other times, the general mood of the city or country would influence my time spent Online.

With the initial frenzy of Social Media Networking, my observation has noted an immaturity to our Online behaviour. Having grown a fan list, a facebook list, blogs, and sites, the door is wide-open for me to pepper people with bits. I plant the occasional seed, and I try to do it more subtly than what I'm actually seeing with many others. I find it interesting that people would "Follow" me for any other reason than interest. I find it interesting that people would "invite" me to their group, or to become a fan of their page, when there is sufficient evidence present for them to understand that I am not their target audience.

In reality, the immaturity of this new buzz is, I believe, a significant contributor to the downturn in social media interest. People (marketers) are after the list. The whole idea that is observed, is one of growing a massive list, throwing the bait out to the hordes accumulated, and waiting for the odd "real" sucker to click and buy. It doesn't seem to matter to these "marketers" that more than 85% of their audience is NOT their target market. They are other marketers trying to build their list, lonely people who are glad someone invited them, and I'm sorry to say it, but also the desperate and low of self-esteemed who feel more worthy with more fans.

If people really took a hard look at the line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, I think we'd observe different participation levels. If the Online purists took an honest look, they would realize that the guy / gal who posts their own stuff, whether bookmarking, twittering, or whatever, is someone who is at least being Honest with the audience and themselves. I've said it before that our Online behaviours are largely being influenced by a) ignorance, b) social pressure / expectations, and c) hunger for a buck.

When the "police" (those who tell us what the Online rules are that defy common sense) relax and allow people to truly interact as they wish, and as the "snake-oil" sales people chill and improve their ethics with their marketing practises, then maybe the Social Media landscape will settle into a more palatable environment that will truly and consistently engage audiences.

As it stands, it does get tiresome.

Here's a little plain English to kick it home:

Recognition of Social Media was made by seeing the opportunity to sell to an Online audience that was growing, and how this audience gravitated to sites that offered interactivity both solo and with others. But the numb-nuts forgot that people react by pushing away the offender that gets "too much in my face."

Now here's something to understand about doing it right.

• The brighter folks recognize what this process is all about and will engage in it fully for the learning opportunity it represents.
  
• If the smart marketer has done things right, they have engaged a relevant target market and has engaged them in the cycle of education that leads up to a buying decision.
  
• These brighter folks, having taken in the details, examined the opportunity, and determined the viability and relevance to their personal situation, will now make a decision to buy, or not to buy.
  
• The smart marketer is selling something that isn't just smoke and mirrors, and provides something that has real value and potential for someone who exercises a practical work-ethic.
  
• These brighter folks know that making it all work, means they have to do the work.

At the very least, go after a relevant target market. It's the shotguns that are driving the market away!

Below is a response I wrote to a blog-entry this morning that harshly criticized the practice of submitting personal links to social media sites. Since there is coercion in the practices that are acceptable, I could hold my tongue no longer and posted a heart-felt response about this whole dogma that is developing around bookmarking and social media networking. Or shall we say, marketing?

There is a real irony to the whole world of social networking, and the criticism of social networking practices.

Take me for example. I'm an easy target.

Here is my social sphere, me and my cat, along with a mind that teases and taunts. I write about life, people, and other oddball things. You see, I tried my hand at being a professional coach. I did alright... but that's about all. Where I thrived during that time was creating interesting articles for my so-called target audience. And, I just 'put it out there.'

You see, a very sound theory exists that suggests that you put something out there, the people that really need to read it will see it. You just do what you do.

Then comes all this SEO stuff, and the people that want to utilize all the tricks of the trade to get their sites spidered, their content indexed, and build valuable links. Well, I didn't create the algorithms now did I?

So what's a little ole me to do?

I being doing what I'm hearing must be done. I open a few accounts online, I Digg my articles, I Fave them, Yahoo, Google, etc. and ya... I promote my stuff. (anybody ever read You Inc.?) Then I learn that I'm a bad boy for doing this and that people will vote me down and bury my links because I'm only submitting my stuff.

Well, hello!!

Social Networking, as you've suggested in what you've written, is a way for us to keep up with other people's happenings.

So what?

Now I have to take meagre time out of my day. Another lament implied by what you've written is that we have so little precious time for socializing. But take a look at all the tactics I have to employ, and all the extra work I have to do, just so I don't look like a twat to people for submitting my own stuff. Not only that, I hear that our links get penalized in our social media profiles, and possibly even deleted by the social network site admins and some even ban IPs from future bookmarking.

So what are you really interested in?

From what I'm gleaning from the tactics and strategies is not that anyone is interested in me, but rather, they're interested in having me do their hunting and fishing for them too.

Rather than simply share what I'm doing, creating, publishing, reading, producing and posting information to my social media profiles across all those social media sites - another time consuming task when doing it ethically - I have to hunt out other content for you to sift through. This makes no sense to me, particularly since we're social networking.

The logic here is full of holes as far as I see it.

• I create a social media profile to share my world with you.
• My world consists of my blog(s), my day job, my passion, my poetry, and a few other things that happen along occasionally.
• Naturally, I will post these bits and pieces to my social media profiles, whether they are social bookmarking sites, or whether they are social interaction sites.
• People who find what I produce interesting now have the opportunity to follow and link to me.
• You create a social media profile to share your world with me.
• Your world I'll discover over time, as my time permits my furtive glances across all my contacts.
• I may respond, I may not. I may bookmark something, I may not. Same vice versa.
• People who find the people I follow interesting, are also likely to start following them too.
  

Interesting how all this works isn't it? Funny we have to start getting all moralistic about how we're supposed to be doing it.

The purpose of all this is simple:

I can post a blog article in one location and create more paths to it, rather than have to copy and paste that article to a variety of other sites, article sites, blogs, and such to expand my reach. We're saving a bit of bandwidth maybe, maybe not, but we all know that duplicate content waters down the good stuff. And all those blog communities and discussion boards where we'd often be invited to post good stuff, often became black-holes that sucked even more time from our grasp.

As social media took off, we discovered a new way, an easier way to extend our reach and share our stuff. So when did it become a bad idea to share our own creative stuff, whether it be blogs, articles, photographs, or sites?

I'll tell you what I believe.

I believe the real culprits are the some greedy types out there who need to muddy the waters for their tactics to remain effective. Keep the masses off balance, flood the gates, change the landscape, create controversy, and get more people doing unusual things based upon what they hear, rather than upon what they would naturally do. This way they disguise their own bad habits from the algorithms as more people get confused and do silly things too.

What would I naturally do?

• I'd naturally post my stuff.
  
• I'd naturally post good quality links, sites, projects... whether it is stuff I stumbled upon, or stuff I'm working on, or people I've met along the way.
  

I think everyone would benefit in the end, instead of being penalized for being who we are.

I don't know that I had to get on the soap box on this issue. It's not like I have anything better to do with my time. My social life with physical people has dried up a lot with the advance of computing, so I don't really have anywhere to go. Then again, maybe I might find a real social life again if I could go back to just being me, rather than what the Internet shifting rules landscape says I ought to be.