marketing in traffic by brian branca

When I was a kid, I never wanted to let my younger brothers play with my toys.  It’s not that I was selfish & wanted to keep them from having fun, it’s that I KNEW they would break shit.  But, because my parents insisted I share, I relented & occasionally would come home from school to what used to be a perfectly working toy (still waiting for that Soundwave replacement fellas).  My position was one we all find ourselves in very often; stuck in the middle of a battle you think you should win, but knowing it is one you will not (notice I did not say cannot).

This is how I feel about social media; I’m stuck in between the social media “experts” & people I wish had no access to it.  Most days I read a few blog posts or tweets from said experts & get frustrated (actually, there’s only like 2 or 3 that annoy me).  I might be at my wit’s end with being told how social media works or how everyone should do this or that.  It’s the same stuff you already know cloaked in verbose Abraham-Hicks-eque words.  Look, I can do that for you right now – The closer your brand comes to being in harmony with your community, the more in harmony you are with potential brand advocates.  When you think of the wants & needs of your customers & identify how you can fill those gaps, you weave yourself into the very fabric of the community. Total BS.  If those 2 sentences meant something to you, please leave this site immediately.

Seriously.  If I told you that you needed to listen & interact more regularly & on a one-to-one basis with your customers along with leveraging your marketing efforts to learn more about potential customers, your response very well might be, “No shit.”

Well, there’s social media for you.  Now make sure you have clearly outlined goals & objectives, a supporting strategy, & the people with the know-how to execute it.  You didn’t really come here to learn anything new about interactive marketing did you?  Dummy.

I oversimplify this because I’m trying to make a point.  You are not a sheep so stop being herded like one.  Use your brain, rely on your experience, & ask lots of questions.  You’ll gain a lot more traction & get things done faster than trying to figure out how to reshape your world into the mold of someone else’s self-indulgent internet presence.

My other beef is with the people that most likely make up the fastest growing segment of the social media space.  You’ve de-friended, hidden feeds, unfollowed, or blocked these people on Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, & Foursquare.  If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be sharing my toys with them.

The amount of server space that is dedicated to hosting inane Facebook groups, status updates, tweets, & creepers/stalkers has to be astronomical.  As much as I’d like to rant, I just ask that you go back to doing what you were before you discovered Farmville.  Maybe cut down how passionate you are about that kind of stuff.  One or the other would suffice.  Oh, also, don’t bleed your heart out on Facebook or Twitter.  It makes you look weak & now that it’s on the internet, it’s there to stay.

It’s possible I have no business criticizing people who clearly have more “experience” & make more money than I do.  Nor should I be any expert on what internet noobs (how is that possible in 2010?) do with their spare time.  But, I think I’m right & know this is a battle I can win.

From the buzz I hear & read on a daily basis, having a FriendFeed account is a must. 

• First Impression: Simple & clean.  As you will read immediately below, creating an account is done in two steps & doesn’t require a lot of time or hassle.

• Registration Process: Creating your account name is quick & easy; it should take you less than a minute.  The next step lets you find people you know through Facebook or your existing email accounts.  The Facebook application did not work after a few attempts, but finding people through my Gmail & Yahoo mail accounts was simple.  Unsurprising to me; I can only find two people I know, but luckily, before completing the registration process I am taken to a screen of popular friend’s friends.  Subscribing to their feeds is done with the click of a button.  Nine appear at a time & new subscription recommendations auto fill each time a new one is added.  Once you are done with all of this, you are taken to your friends page & can begin seeing what they publish or add your own.



 

• What It Is: An aggregator for just about every social media account you manage online.  Currently there are 41 services you can add to your FriendFeed.  There are four main tabs – friends, rooms, me, & everyone.  Friends shows you all subscription updates with the most recent displaying at the top of the page.  You can join or create your own discussion room; a great way for niche topics, interests, etc. to become more in-depth conversations.  Your me tab removes everything but your updates.  In the everyone tab, you see just that; everyone’s updates.

• Potential: If you are ahead of the game & you frequently update things like your blog Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, & StumbleUpon & have a healthy FriendFeed subscription list your ability to reach many increases.  It is a great way to engage & share your content with others while pulling the same type of content from your friend’s feeds.

• Why You Should Join: Once you sign up for FriendFeed & realize the connection potential, you will instantly realize the value of this service.   Many of us spend a lot of time updating others about the various types of content we post; problem is we are usually wary of spamming our friends.  However, if someone finds you compelling enough to subscribe to your feed, chances are they will want to participate in many of the things you wish to share.

• Why You Should Avoid: I honestly cannot think of one.  Yes, FriendFeed could be a little prettier in presentation.  BUT like RSS, you can easily keep yourself up to date with content you find interesting or valuable.