is the one that will yield your greatest social media ROI.
Marketing Style
If you have been reading this blog for the past year or so, you know I consider your blog to be the center of your social media universe. This is where you have the largest body of information that speaks favorably about you and your company. It is where you develop new ideas, and capture those stories that are the legacy of your business.
There are many top bloggers who will agree with me. We all love to blog, and as a result, we get practical results from our blogs.
That said, I have recently been collaborating with Shawn Doyle, another professional speaker who uses a different approach that works equally well for him. He uses LinkedIn as his hub, and the strength of his LinkedIn presence is the private group he created to collaborate with others who are interested in motivation and leadership. He calls his group Motivation Nation!
What is interesting about Shawn's LinkedIn group is he can manage the content, just as I manage the content of this blog. Using different channels, we are both accomplishing our business objectives. You should consider which channel works best for you and why. Of course, there are still other channels to consider, such as Facebook and Twitter, which have micro-blogging capabilities much like LinkedIn.
Blogging is the perfect channel for me because it fits my storytelling style of marketing. However, the ability of a LinkedIn group to connect people with common interests and objectives is working exceptionally well for Shawn. The point is there is no right or wrong here. The question is what is right for you and your target audience.
When choosing your favorite social media channel, you should consider your communication style, your audience, and most importantly, where you feel most comfortable investing your time.
I'll be honest, in the early days of Twitter, I really enjoyed using Twitter to collaborate with a wide range of people around the globe. For that reason, it produced the greatest ROI for me. As Twitter became more impersonal, I shifted my focus to this blog.
Extending Your Channel
Regardless of where you decide to cast your anchor to establish the hub of your social media presence, you still need to use other social media channels to encourage more people to engage with your community. Just as your company website can benefit from an active blog that points to it, so can that blog benefit from the cross-connections of Facebook, Twitter, and many other channels.
Professional speakers often talk about meeting the audience where they are. By that we mean connecting with them on a topic through a relevant mindset. The mindset on Facebook is clearly more loose and open than it is on LinkedIn.
And there is no telling what the mindset is on Twitter from day to day, but we know with certainty that it has an incredible reach, and is therefore quite valuable for extending the message that you cultivate within your hub – your favorite social media channel.
I'm really looking forward to sharing the stage with Shawn this summer at a convention where we will work together to help others learn how to apply the respective methods that have worked for us. We may even help them to develop hybrid methods that will work best for them and their community.
When it comes to social networking and marketing, there is not one size that fits all. Find a channel that allows you and your community to best do what they most want to do.
Tuning into that channel is something your will look forward to.
A positive ROI will be the natural result.
Photo Credit: Leo™
