Social Media is one of the most powerful things that have happened to our generation. It is driving engagement between folks sharing similar interests irrespective of location. Simply put, the world is just a click away!
No wonder Social Media has done a wonderful job so far, but increasingly I am missing the ‘engagement’ aspect of it these days.
And my disenchantment with the medium is grew more as I was reading the Ghost Tweeter post by Kerry O’Shea Gorgone.
5 Things not driving ‘Engagement’ on Social Media
1. Outsourcing
Simply put, outsourcing is just not ‘social’. On social media, people are expecting to hear the real YOU. When you ask someone else to do the job, the entire essence of the medium is lost. While you can have a tribe that shares content, but you have to be there to respond and drive the engagement with your followers otherwise you will just end up with one more marketing channel.
2. Buying Followers/Likes
How often do you see someone with 100 tweets and having 10000 followers or 10 updates and 1000 likes. Social Media is about build community and creating engagement with folks sharing similar interests. When you buy them in bulk, assuming they are real users, only a few would connect with your thoughts and engage. So when someone says ‘Build your followers organically’, they really mean DON’T BUY!
3. Like/+1
More often we see that people either Like or +1 a ‘status update’. Huh!! What can we really make out of it?? When a status update is put on the social platform, we most probably would be seeking a opinion on a subject. When we see a Like or +1, it’s very difficult to judge if the person agrees with the point or they just mean that ‘Ok, I have read you’. Simple words like, ‘I agree to your point’ or ‘No, this is not right’ will drive engagement and thus the ‘Social’ part.
4. Being a billboard
How often do you see brands that have tons of followers who comment on their update, but the brands seldom respond. Seen that!! How different are they from a billboard – The one that we often talk about when we see while driving to work? The only difference is, the fans are heard, but the fans never hear back. See, the ‘Engagement’ goes for a toss again!!
5. I scratch your back, you scratch mine
Lot of us on LinkedIn have heard the term ‘Open Networker’. They accept all connect request and reciprocate too. And the same stuff continues on other platforms as well. What happens then is, they have tons of connections that are built organically too, but very few in them will be valuable. So these folks might be popular since they have the numbers to show, but the type and quality of engagement would be poor.
Can we do anything about it? Yes, maybe the next time you see a status update, respond to it with few words and see how creatively you can add an opinion. You can always catch up with Peg Fitzpatrick‘s updates on Facebook or Google+ to understand what create updates and opinions are. For me, she’s the best one around.
Start now!
1. By dropping a comment here and giving your opinion about this article
2. Share other engagement killing tactics
Photo Credit: ivanpw
People boast of 5,000 connections on Linkedin..It makes them think that they are social media guru’s..LinkedIn networking in India still has to pick up..I rarely visit that site for conversing, coz all i just find are new requests for connections and nothing else..
I’m totally with you on this one, man. And I read that Ghost Tweeter post too. Kinda made me gag. I know that I’ve been part of the problem with automating posts and being lazy by “liking” statuses.
I’m trying to get away from that kind of mentality and get back to my social media roots. I’ve closed my Triberr account, I’m actually monitoring my Twitter feed, and I’m trying to leave more comments on blogs. I hope we can turn this thing around…
Great article @malhar I have seen so many campaigns and contests where people forge their likes/votes/tweets. Its really sad to see such a shape because of few morons out there.
True that. LinkedIn has become a spammer’s paradise IMO.
LinkedIn started as a great network, but somewhere along they couldn’t stop the spammers and it has lost a great number of fans. But there are indeed some groups where the quality of discussion are awesome.
We all have been there @douglaserice:disqus !! I can’t act a preacher here, but then I found that it hardly does me any good. So I try to read as many articles these days and engage with the author either on comments or their social media platform.
@harsh_ajmera:disqus Well, for few it just make a business sense but they forget that these platforms have been devised to drive engagement. Unless that is done, the platforms just end up being an additional marketing channel where the focus will go after a while.
@d4deepan:disqus – I believe that the platforms behave as good as we want it to be. Tomorrow if people start avoiding those spammers, they will move away. So be wary of all the connections that you make and do not shy away from disconnecting the spammer from your network. That does help!
Lots of unknown followers, auto dm’s, auto tweets, retweets of content that has not been read. Happening more and more. And some folks think they are engaged?
Indeed @marczazeela:disqus ! I hate those too and really doubt the skills of these marketers. One of the debate I heard recently pointed to a fact that the social media has a very low entry barrier and thus everyone around proclaim to be ‘experts’ and for short term gains, game the platforms. Would you agree to that?
My take is the folks who are the true experts are also the most humble. Those proclaiming themselves expert are usually little more than noisy amateurs craving attention.
Nicely said. The real ones are truly humble. But the noisy amateurs, fly-by-night experts are making a mess out of the platforms and that really aggravates me.
All is a matter of perspective. What is 5,000 in the Linkedin universe of 200,000,000?
It only makes one popular among the group that considers them popular. Is that really a big deal or is it simply a way of feeding the egos?
You just dropped the ‘ego’ word @marczazeela:disqus . How would you view the so-called influence measurement tools aka Klout, PeerIndex, etc. Personally, I do not value the scores since they can be easily gamed and they just act as ego-boosters
Interesting perspective. I view the influence measurement sites with a healthy does of skepticism. Indeed, they can easily be gamed. To me, they seem more a measure of popularity (see Facebook “likes”) than they do of true influence.
And,even if it is some measure of influence, it is measured against a relatively small sample size.
For some, I think ego plays a big part. Otherwise, why would someone actually pay for followers? There are sites that will sell them to you. Reminds me of the activist who pays people to show up at his rallies so he can appear popular in the hopes of gaining a true following.
Right, it’s typically like the case of the activist.
Thanks for sharing your opinion @marczazeela:disqus