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Anyone who has tried running a website knows that one of the "defacto" Google rules is to build a good social media following. To interact and share good content, and spread your word. This gives your content more exposure on the web, period. And it helps you with your Google rankings, etc., etc..
But most of the time social media (SM) tends to follow and grow around personalities that already have a presence.
Some of the bigger websites out there have their SM accounts, and they already have a following. So when they open or post to any SM channel, everyone will follow along and it looks like SM is working.
One particular pro-blogger conducts tests on various aspects of the web, but with thousands upon thousands of followers, the tests to me seem rather invalid. Now if he were to take up an unknown mantle, and try his tests then, well, those results I'd believe.
But be it as it may, the entrenched say you must use SM to get ahead on the web. But what I'm seeing is that for someone like myself, it's consistent, decent article creation that helps. But in a very slow, methodical advance of generating web traffic. Every now and then, like maybe two or three times a year I hit on an uber-hot subject and my traffic goes through the roof! But as in any business sense, you might retain about one percent of that spike.
So the traffic spikes are fun to see, but they're not netting the numbers in the long haul.
And now Media Life put something interesting together about SM... some stats.
For instance:
30% of online adults, between 18-29 use Twitter.
While only 18% of adults who are online, have a Twitter account.
[Go ahead, you do the math on that one.]
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Here's one that doesn't surprise me, and that is there is a higher concentration of SM users come from households who make less than $30k a year.
They claim that this number reflects the "relative youth" of who uses social media.
And I don't think that's innaccurate. But I see it as those who have crazy busy careers and make more money than most of us don't have time to even dawdle on the web. They actually have lives that keep them very preoccupied.
I work amongst a bunch of scientists and of about 50 of them, one or two might embrace the Twitter, while some might be on Facebook. But most of the time, the blank and polite stares says it all when I inquire if they use any of these platforms. Those with productive careers are otherwise focused, in other words.
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MediaLife's focus was on Twitter. Facebook is a totally different beast.
The way Facebook works, it almost works against the account holder.
I say that because as you follow, like or friend pages or people, if you don't interact with those streams of content, Facebook stops showing them to you in your feed. Yes, if you don't comment on, or like updates of pages, or even friends, you will eventually stop seeing those updates.*
Then there's the even more annoying aspect that old posts show up in your timelines as new, just because someone commented on them.
ARgh.
*There is a fix so you don't lose status updates on pages or friends on Facebook.
Head over to their page/stream, and click on the like button. There's an option to "Get Notifications" there that you need to click. It seems bass-ackwards that you like something but stop getting updates unless you click this, but there it is.
OK... I'm done with this consumer rant on social media for the moment.
If this helped you out in any way, please like, share, .... oh crap, there I go, pushing my social media agenda.
[medialife]
-Bruce
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