Collecting is for things, Social Media is for ENGAGING

I am a collector by nature… I collect Fire-King Jadite dishes from the 50’s, fish-shaped bitter bottles, unofficially I like lady bugs, I have more pairs of shoes than any woman should be allowed to own and have a huge affinity for accessories in general. Collecting is fun, it gives me a goal when I am digging through a flea market or browsing a store. I love to find treasures! But simply collecting in social media just doesn’t work.

In my years in television, social media went from “something that would never catch on” to a key tool for communicating with our audience on a daily basis. Initially, the corporate push was to collect people, get the numbers any way that you could–the numbers were where the action was. I have never subscribed to that approach and held our course… steadily, and for the most part, organically growing a trusted community that engaged us on a daily basis. For a long time, our mid-sized market station had the largest social media community out-doing much larger cities with much greater potential, but more importantly, we had a HIGHLY ENGAGED community that cared what was said and shared their thoughts, ideas, tips and feedback with us. What an incredible gift!

I would much rather have 1000 people who are engaged and focused than 5000 who have my company hidden from their newsfeed because I promised them an iPad and then pelted them with spam messages.

I am not adverse to promotions and contests but be careful that if you promise something that it makes sense and that the end result is a positive one. My favorite example is the “Be our friend or the puppy gets it” promotion. It goes like this –you agree that if you can get to a certain number of friends by a certain day that you will give a sizable donation to an animal shelter… BUT What happens if you don’t reach that number? Do puppies die? Do you just keep your money? I sincerely hope not– I, for one, love puppies! Think through your promotions and contests to make sure that they have true benefit for your social and/or physical community.

Don’t just collect your social community, build it, engage it, fill it with content that matters and they will come.

One thought on “Collecting is for things, Social Media is for ENGAGING

  1. Traditional media platforms make possible a kind of unilateral intimacy. You “know” the talk show host, the performing artist, or the conference speaker. But social media has taken this to a whole new level. It makes possible bilateral intimacy—engagement. The result is that you can be more connected to your fans, customers, and supporters than ever before.

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