coveritlive rules

In the world of social media, more isn’t always better. It’s hard to figure out just where to spend our time and energy, especially when our efforts rarely produce any instantly quantifiable results. When I first started trying to build my band’s online presence and I sized up all the options, I subscribed to what I now think of as the “Dog Licking Itself” approach: if it’s free, and easy, and produces no noticeable negative consequences, well…. why not?

The longer I’ve been doing this, the more I’ve grown to understand that there ARE negative

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

consequences to this all-inclusive social-media-love-fest way of thinking. We all have only so much time in our day, and unless we’re really lucky (or really good at it) updating social networks doesn’t pay the bills. Setting up accounts everywhere you can splash an avatar may seem like a no-brainer, but there’s one major snag: if your content isn’t current and dynamic, it isn’t exciting. And if your profile or site doesn’t inspire excitement in the people who find it, they won’t come back.

The strength of new media is its interactivity. Fans get excited about your band, or your product, or your ideas, but in order to KEEP them excited, you have to provide them with content. Even if you’re not personally conversing with people on your site or profile, frequent updates and new content will give your audience the impression that you care about communicating with them, and that you feel they deserve your attention.

Consider this scenario: you have gone to the effort of setting up accounts on all the major networking platforms, but you’ve found that Facebook is really much more user-friendly and feature rich than the others, so you have gradually stopped updating your other profiles and you’re really focusing on building your Facebook following.

A potential fan hears about you somehow (radio, blogs, reviews, whatever). They are interested enough to search for you online. They type your name into their favorite search engine, and BANG – there you are! The first link takes them to your MySpace page.

Upon clicking through to your profile, they notice that although there is some content there, YOU haven’t logged in for a few months. Your last blog post is talking about 4th of July celebrations, and it’s now early December. The last comment from a fan is six months old. They poke around, and then navigate back to their search results.

Second on the list is your profile on LinkedIn. This one’s even worse – you DO have a profile, but that’s all – from the looks of things, you’ve NEVER updated anything here. You only have a few dozen fans and it’s obvious the profile is in a coma.

But…. lunch break is over, and your disappointed potential fan hasn’t got time to keep searching. Maybe they’ll try again later – or maybe not. Perhaps they’ll find your beautifully moderated and content-rich Facebook Page and you’ll have a brand-new hardcore fan… or maybe you’ll never even know how close they came to joining your circle.

This is the oft-overlooked danger of jumping into the world of social networks with both feet. Most people don’t stop to consider it, but you’re essentially creating a new website associated with your brand EVERY TIME YOU CREATE A PROFILE. Think of all the time and money we spend trying to keep our homepages fresh and exciting. Does it make sense to clutter up search engines with results that won’t hold a user’s interest? Isn’t it better to figure out where your target demographics are most likely to congregate, and focus your efforts there?

If you’re determined to spread yourself as far and wide as possible online, here’s my advice (for what it’s worth):

1. Use services like Ping.fm to update ALL your social networks at once – send photos from your phone, ask questions, keep people interested.
2. Musicians: make sure you have a service like ArtistData set up so that you can automate as much content as possible: tour dates, blog updates, photo galleries etc. This way, even if you can’t take the time to get personally involved in EVERY network in which you choose to participate as frequently as you’d like, you won’t be left with a bunch of zombie profiles and your presence online will be fresh and dynamic – however someone might find you.
3. Before setting up a new social network, do a little research. Who is using this service? What advantages does it offer over other, more established networks? How much time will you need to spend every week to keep this new profile active and interactive? It’s better to skip a network you won’t use than to let it fall by the wayside and decompose.
4. Make bookmarks for all your sites, and make sure you have a way to remember all the logins and passwords. I keep all my social networking bookmarks in the bookmark bar of my browser AND pinned to my start page. It’s easier to remember to update a profile when it’s constantly reminding you of its existence.
5. Don’t be afraid to close a profile. If it’s not working, you’re not networking.

And always remember the lesson of the overzealous dog: just because you can, doesn’t mean it’s a great idea… and never forget that you’re IN PUBLIC.