Marketing Director

Showing posts with label Linkedin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linkedin. Show all posts

Understanding Social Networks: Frequency


Last month I discussed understanding social networks with a focus on delivery. I continue to see lots of people cross posting from Twitter to LinkedIn, something that I consider to be a bad move due to the nature of the different audiences on each social network. Today let's discuss something with even less hard and fast rules than delivery: Frequency. We've all had someone in our online social network who updates their status too much or with items we don't find interesting. I am sure I have been that person before (please let me know with a comment below, thanks). On LinkedIn most of your network is professional and oriented towards different goals and habits than on Twitter or Facebook. Here's an example from LinkedIn today:

To be kind to friends and connections I have blacked the cross posters' information. As you can see these folks are cross posting from Twitter. I already get these messages on Twitter from these people. I used the colored dots in the top right of the updates to identify the same user's updates. The frequency of these people's tweets is preventing me from viewing as many different LinkedIn updates as I would like. I see the same people constantly in my LinkedIn updates section. 

The frequency of tweets (1-20/day) is very different than the usual frequency of LinkedIn updates (1-3/week). I know I am going to get into a bit of hot water here as everyone has different ideas about how often updates should be made on different social networks. There are NO hard and fast rules here, but when people ask me how frequently they should post I give them this list:
My Twitter Stats from tweetstats.com



  • Twitter: 1 ~ 100 times/day (few can be productive, see: @unmarketing's Best tip: 75% @replies.)


  • LinkedIn: 1 - 3 times/week


  • Blog: Set a standard and stick to it. (Daily, weekly, monthly)


  • Facebook Personal: As you please.


  • Facebook Page: Set a standard. Observe page insights & likes, comments, etc. Don't Spam.


  • These are frequencies I recommend using for posts. What do you recommend or use?

    We are all busy and seeing things we aren't interested in can turn people off, consider how easy it is to "unfollow" on Twitter or "hide" on Facebook. This is why it is so important to understand and respect each audience for their differences in the frequency and delivery they expect.

      Understanding Social Networks: Delivery


      The three major social networks or as a Pakistani gentleman who repurposed my presentation calls them "The Three Amigos" Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter should be considered the essential social networks for most users. Niche Social Networks are a different beast altogether. I want to discuss the differences in 'Delivery' for the Three Amigos.

      Linking together different social media profiles is all the rage these days and it does save time, but it may do damage to people's networks that they may not consider. Consider how you felt the last time you read something you didn't understand. This may be how your network on LinkedIn or Facebook feel seeing RT, @ or # in a message you post. They may not understand what it is.
      Twitter is different from Facebook and LinkedIn in that it has symbols and key strings you wouldn't normally see when using the other networks. If you are someone who has only heard of Twitter but hasn't come to understand these words and symbols it can be challenging to understand and off putting. Remember what it was like the last time you read something that you didn't understand completely.

      I recently linked my Youtube with Twitter and Facebook. The problem was when I favourited things or added videos to a playlist I do it a whole bunch at once flooding the stream. Once I saw it I changed the settings which had a lot of good options, like it would only update my networks when i uploaded a new video. Let's look at a few examples of messages across social networks.

      This is an example of what a Facebook post looks like from April Smith. Notice the logo and the meta description pulled from the page automatically by Facebook. April has also posted this to the DNC Fan Page wall by using Facebook's mention function neither the graphic, the meta description nor the mention appear when cross posting as below:


      I don't mean to call out my friend Jeremy Lim he is a busy professional in high demand so I understand him using cross posting to save time and get out his message but one just has to read the comments section of his post to understand the reaction of users who didn't know what a hashtag (#) was. 

      This post could have appeared on Facebook in this way:

      The big difference about the social networks is the different audiences. We can't treat them all the same. On Twitter the hashtags become links to searches about the topic (EX). This is what Jeremy's post looked like on Twitter:

      On Twitter the message looks perfect and fits in the Twitter ecosystem, but on Facebook it looks out of place and makes at least one person feel like they 'haven't learned the tricks'. Jeremy reveals that in fact he is cross posting to almost a dozen different social networking sites with the same message. I believe doing so is taking a risk.

      Lastly, one of my favourite independent local marketing people, Rosa Meyers. Rosa cross posts from Twitter to LinkedIn. Rosa is starting out in marketing and LinkedIn is one the best places for her to find and connect with current and future clients some of whom may have never seen an RT or a # because they don't use Twitter. This is what her cross posted tweet looked  like on LinkedIn:
      Cross posting from Twitter to LinkedIn is a problem due to the differences in frequency for people using each platform as well. The biggest risk here is that the audience and potential audience on LinkedIn don't appreciate the 'cryptic' and very frequent updates as much as the audience on Twitter does. We only get one chance to make a first impression and when someone sees a status update on LinkedIn that they don't understand they may be less likely to connect with us.

      In conclusion, as more and more people start using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn it's important that they feel like these ecosystems are easy to understand and I believe cross posting makes that more difficult. This post started out as one but will now be made into two: Delivery and Frequency, which I will cover in a later post.

      For people who talk regularly these different messages are not a problem, they talk about it and someone learns something. It's when you don't speak to someone who only sees you on LinkedIn or Facebook, that the sight of these characters and symbols, which they don't understand, can put them off of communications and as the poster we may never know as they hide our updates on Facebook or LinkedIn. What are your thoughts on cross posting? What social networks do you use? Do you notice these differences in symbols and language? What are your feelings about it?

        Answering LinkedIn Q&As helps me write. Example

        How are Universities using social networking media such as LinkedIn, FaceBook and MySpace? 

        The question really has two parts: How are universities using the tools now and how will they use them in the future?

        The most important thing schools need to understand is that these new tools are an opportunity to connect their community in an authentic way.

        This is a wholesale cultural shift in the way we gather information, work together and communicate. It is not a marketing movement. Marketing in the social media space in the traditional sense works only for some companies. (See Dell, Japadog, etc.) Most of those sell consumer products.

        Education is something very different. It is an experience, a path to a better life and a way to become the professional each individual strives to be. In essence it covers all of the 'Needs' in Maslo's Hierachy of Needs.

        LinkedIn:
        LinkedIn is mainly used by individuals representing the institutions in their own way. Each staff, faculty and student can provide the school an opportunity to leverage their expertise through their contributions to the LinkedIn community and in turn raise the profile of the school in an authentic way.

        At this point schools are using LinkedIn to do research (See Rob Duncan), build professional networks, reconnect with alumni and seek out the top faculty and staff for key positions. I could keep writing because all the time people all over the world are using these new tools in new ways. Follow them on Twitter and stay up to date ;)

        Facebook:
        Schools use Facebook to communicate with prospective students, current students and alumni. This is the challenge of Facebook for schools. Some schools make different groups and pages to try and manage these elements more independently. It can put a strain on often over utilized marketing and it/web services resources.

        Students will make groups of their own and probably already have. The answer from Lisa Enderby, Experiential Learning Consultant at University of Toronto covers this very well. Schools should have a representative there. At BCIT we are using our Facebook Page as a way to communicate with our community in that space, the important thing is understanding who they are, it's different for each school and dynamic.

        For us there are is a larger group started by a student before the institution's entry into Facebook. This group caters more to students desire to have more casual and 'unofficial' conversation. We participate in it as individuals and alumnus to clarify questions and provide answers when we have them.

        The are many uses for Facebook and there are many larger schools particularly in the United States with enough resources and student participation to create custom apps and student portal integration with Facebook connect, as an option. One US school built it's own custom social networking site for Freshman to connect with great success, above average buy-in and high engagement levels.

        Teachers are making groups for specific courses to share current supplemental  course material. Some teachers use delicious, some use Twitter. Each tool offers teachers and instructors an easy way to communicate and store ideas with a group. They answer students questions in a forum which is better than in class or via email for a few reasons. Emails are sent to individuals and remain private unless forwarded. They also need to be categorized or sorted to be organized for later access. Teachers use blogs, pages, specific links, discussions and wall posts to save time and turn an answer to a question into information for all students to use, share and converse.

        In class some students don't pay attention, some miss class and some just miss what the professor said. A facebook group, twitter page or delicious page is a course blog that doesn't require as much effort and encourages students to become active participants.

        Myspace:
        MySpace isn't widely used in Canada but has been successful for some large American schools.

        Thanks to Rob Duncan for sending me this question through LinkedIn and thanks to Diane McCullough for asking it.