Social Media Is About Individuality

When trying to market your brand and increase communications through social media, you have to remember that each person and each community is unique.

Social media communications can't be mass produced. Every social media technology has a plethora communities within it. All of these communities have their own interests, ways of sharing opinions, languages and code of ethics. Within that, the individuals of the communities have to be treated as such. Sure, you can send a message to a blog, discussion board, Facebook group and get some pick-up or engagement, but your brand with grow much stronger and with greater affinity if you seek out individuals or go through the community administrators who are trusted by the community. The notion that your brand is connecting on a one-one level with consumers will hopefully spread like wildfire.

The key in social media is to be human, show some personality and ultimately so your brand is tangible rather than mechanical. You have to remember that no matter how easy it is, mass communication techniques are often tabbed as spam in the social media world.

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You Forgot Blogs, Discussion Boards, Video Sharing and Others

I just came across an article on the Examiner.com asserting that Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is the holy trinity of social media. There is no doubt that these these tools are immensely popular and extremely effective marketing tools, but it is terribly shortsighted to call them the holy trinity.

The first segment of social media that was forgotten would be blogs. I know I've lumped hundreds of millions of sites in together here, but that is what blogging is all about. It is having a singular source to share your thoughts, while connecting with others blogs to network and converse. The power of blogs is amazing. Lets look at Gawker Media Groups blogs in particular:

• Gizmodo averages over 2 million visits per day
• Lifehacker averages over 1 million visits per day
• Deadspin averages just under .5 million visits per day

Those are astounding numbers that cannot be discounted when weighing the value and influence of a social media tool.

Discussion boards are still wildly popular. They are most prevalent when talking about consumer products or college athletics, but lets not forgot about the passion that is shown on these forums. The fervor people display in these forums is greater than you will ever see on a social network or a comment section of a blog.

Video and photo sharing sites also can't be forgotten. The Youtubes and Flickrs of the world have immense influence and often touch the peripheral social media users more than other sites will. These are also rapidly growing platforms and will continue to gain strength moving forward.

I don't want to call out the writer of this original statement, but I think he jumped the gun on declaring the existence of a holy trinity of social media.

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