Is It All Me Me Me?

Okay, social media. You get an account, you get a profile and you tell people a bit about yourself.

But here’s the thing. Some people carry on in that vein and ruin what chance they had of developing their business and getting it out there in front of a much bigger audience.

Now social networking sites are really intended for people to get in touch and link up with people on a personal basis – that’s where the name ‘social’ comes from. But businesses of all kinds have latched onto the fact that there are lots of customers here to get in touch with.

But although this is a form of promotion it can backfire majorly if businesses focus just on their own needs. People who use social media sites are very much on the ball. If they see someone who is constantly saying ‘look what I’m doing’ or ‘I’ve written another book’ or ‘we’ve got a new product out’, they will soon tire of going to find out anything more about that person. No one visits a social media site to be advertised to. We can get that elsewhere on the web – there’s no need for it in this situation.

So it’s worth taking a look at how you do things yourself. Are you overly promotional or delighted to announce everything you do? Or do you focus more on the needs of the people who are following you?

Some people have a strategy they follow – albeit sometimes loosely – that ensures they get the balance just right. For every post or announcement they make that focuses on their needs, they post a much bigger number of updates that are beneficial for their followers and not them. For example it could be a link to a web page that is really useful, and has nothing in it for them. Or it could just be advice of some kind.

In short, the ‘me, me, me’ approach is not the best one to use unless you have just won an Oscar. It doesn’t have a place in social media – not if you want to get the best results from it.