Social Media – Is Quality over Quantity More Effective

I had a little snigger to myself after reading an article in the Saturday papers that had suggested that Kevin Rudd, the current Prime Minister of Australia, had artificially boosted his Twitter follower numbers to make himself appear more influential in the social media world. The article goes on to suggest that a substantial number of his Twitter followers are based outside of Australia in countries such as Ecuador and Belarus.

If Kevin has inflated his numbers, he has done nothing that a lot of other individuals haven’t done to appear more influential in their chosen field, in fact I wrote an article about this called How to Fake Your Twitter Followers last year.

It’s easy to fake and inflate your social media following on sites such as Facebook and Twitter to make yourself look like a guru, but what is more of an issue to me, and I’ve seen it starting to appear more and more in business lately, is when KPI’s are tied to how many followers a marketing manager can generate.

This sends a totally wrong message to Marketing Managers that numbers are more important than quality when it comes to your social media community.

To me, quality amongst your social media followers should be far more important, and choosing who you should follow back is also a consideration when it comes to being recognized by search engines such as Google, they place more emphasis on quality of connections than they do on numbers of followers. 

Tying a marketing managers KPI’s to how many followers they can generate is nonsense, it displays a total misunderstanding of how social media should be used by senior management in these companies, KPI’s should be based on developing a solid following of consumers who will engage with you, who will buy your product or service and who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer as a company.  

Trying to judge your ROI is going to be far more difficult as well, having an artificially inflated following will not convert into sales, why? because the majority of these followers have no interest in your company or product, they’re just along for the ride.    

Your KPI’s should be based on building a solid community of quality followers.

Using this strategy is far more effective in creating increased sales and conversions than concentrating on building large numbers in social media, particularly when looking at your ROI.

So remember, the catch phrase is quality over quantity, it’s far more effective in the long term if you want your social media strategy to be successful.

Social Media As The New CV

For some time now I’ve been using my social media network as my on line CV, suggesting to prospective clients and others I work with “to check me out on line and Google me” if they’d like to know more about what I do and a number of times this has been very effective for me and has led to new clients and speaking engagements on using social media to drive new business .

By using this method I’ve found it really gives them a good understanding of what I do, and of course, when it comes to working with them on a web campaign or social media strategy they have a clear understanding of what can be achieved. I’ve effectively replaced the old style paper resume with a new generation concept, and once they do a search on me they see all the web sites I own, articles I’ve written and those that have been syndicated and can see my area of expertise far better than I could explain or show on paper.

There is however a down side to all of this, and that’s why your on line presence or social network needs to managed very carefully and you need to be really aware of what information you put on line on your Facebook or Myspace page, as those photos, words or comments can really come back and bite you big time!!

Job seekers today are being urged to manage their on line footprint very carefully, because a recent report by Viacom in the UK, found that 1 in 5 employers had researched social networking sites and found personal information about prospective employees, and 59% said it had influenced their recruitment decision.

Amongst the reasons given for not employing people they had researched on the net, were and I quote, “His MySpace website showed a negative side to him including excessive alcohol abuse and disrespect for his job’ and ‘We found that the candidate was on the local police wanted list.’

The report also found that we as users of social media sites are leaving significant footprints of personal information on the web, as we use blogging sites, social networking sites etc.
The spread of people posting personal information on the web is not limited to younger generations though, with 31% of all internet users leaving personal information, which is searchable by anyone, on the web. However, the biggest group of information providers are in the age group 18-24, with just under half of those questioned for this survey, posting personal information on Facebook, MySpace and Youtube.

The biggest concern to come out of this survey though, is that over 54% of the 18 to 24 year olds questioned during this research,responded that someone other than themselves, had posted photos, information and comments about them without their approval.
So, with the rise of search engines such as Google and Yahoo, be aware that employers are never more than a click away from getting information about you the job seeker, and of course, the same is true for companies, as job seekers are able to research information about prospective employers, so this is really a two way street.

The upshot of all of this is that you really need to think very carefully about the information you put on social network sites and you need to protect your name or brand. Your on line reputation is so vitally important today that you can’t afford to neglect it.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this post, or even if you’ve experienced this problem yourself, so please leave me a comment.

.Mobile Phones Beat PC’s for Young Women

Back in December of last year I wrote a post on the future of the Internet in 2020, and in that post one of the predictions was that mobile devices would be the primary connection tool to the Internet and social media for most people. Well I thought I’d revisit the progress of that statement and look at if the mobile device is in fact having any impact on searching trends.
Some new research from a company in the US SRG, has found the mobile phone is displacing the PC among US women in terms of usage – especially in the 12-24 age group, the survey has found that young women spend twice as much time with their cell phones as women over age 40.

The survey also revealed that more than 80% of US women now use a wireless device and 17% use a smartphone, such as an iPhone, BlackBerry or models from HTC, Samsung, LG or similar. Among those in the 12-24 and 25-39 age groups, smartphone ownership is now 23%. In contrast 11% of women ages 40+ own a smartphone.
When asked about the top benefits of owning a smartphone, the top answers among women were convenience, the ability to send texts and email, and access to social media online.
When asked what technology had the most impact on their life in the past two years, women overall picked the internet, followed by the PC/computer, and cell/wireless in a distant third spot. This changed amongst young women, where a wireless device took the #1 spot:

So how does that impact on how they use social media?

The study found that more mobile usage and smartphone ownership is enabling women to bypass the traditional PC to upload their pictures to social media sites:
Nearly 74% of 12-24 year-olds say they have taken a photo with their cell phone in the past month.

Young women are twice as likely have used the internet browser on their cell phone in the past month.

22% of 12-24 year-olds used their mobile device to access Facebook, MySpace or Twitter in the past month, making them four times as likely as older women to have accessed social media such as a Facebook profile or MySpace page on their mobile phone.
From that research and the upward trend of smart phone usage, particularly amongst women, who are the bigger users of social media, you don’t need to be Einstein to work out that the smart phone will be the primary connection tool for the Internet and social media online well before 2020.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, so please leave me a comment on this post.