Mapping a route to social network success
The growth of the social networks is subject to a constant coming and going of tools, habits, trends, new use protocols, and changing value proposals. It is perfectly possible that something you started out using as a kind of game or that you were experimenting with now feels like it has more value. Equally, services that once seemed extremely useful has fallen into disuse for lack of uptake, mergers and acquisitions, or the public’s changing tastes.
Such a fluid situation makes it difficult to come up with personal strategies that we can really follow when it comes to setting goals. When all is said and done, tools are simply tools: there is no point in talking about a Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn strategy when what is really needed is a “strategy strategy”.
In which case, where to start? Well, you can’t map your route until you know where you want to go. So perhaps the most sensible thing to do is go about things semantically, an approach that fits in perfectly with how the web works. Which means we need to ask ourselves the terms, or the semantic field of terms that would we like to be associated with our name after a certain period of time? When somebody looks us up, what words should be in those links? Or better still; can we get our name to come up when those words are typed into a search engine? And in what languages? Are we going to limit that to our own language, or others that might interest us? Thinking about the question in these terms is a good way to begin laying down a social networks strategy: at the very least it will give us an idea of where we want to go.
The next area we need to look at is just who else is out there working in the same fields as us. Let’s avoid “when I grow up I want to be like such and such” and instead look at who’s there now living in the space we want to be in. This isn’t about competing: there is enough of our potential readers’ attention to go round; instead see other writers and commentators as a kind of beacon, a reference point on the map. We need to determine whether the area that interests us is already heavily populated or a barren plain. Try to identify common sources. Who are these other people feeding from them? What are they doing? With Twitter, for example, it is essential to start following them. This is an important step: we will move from using it to keep in touch with our friends, and instead start using it as a tool for accessing and storing information. We can even establish contact with people that over time might hear about us.
Twitter is the great equalizer: you can establish a relationship with people who you might never have imagined talking to you once you have made some comment about their work: but make sure you have something worthwhile to say… The feeling is the same as suddenly being introduced at a cocktail party to somebody you have been dying to meet…but it’s vital to be up to speed on their work and thoughts if you’re really going to build something.
LinkedIn is another potential goldmine: moving from simply having a profile to identifying people and groups worth following, or establishing ourselves as the go-to person on the subjects that interest us on sites that can serve as a showcase is simply a question of using our head and sticking at it. Not everyone is up to it, but if we know what we want, it’s easier than it seems.
Content curation can help you to reach this point: it is not about distributing news and links as they pass by, instead, try to add as much value as you can through a carefully organized selection. Try to bring the spotlight to the best articles, the one you think deserve to be commented or taken into consideration, the ones that everyone interested in the topic should read. This should be rooted into a well developed content acquisition strategy — a well configured Feedly account is nowadays a fantastic asset to any manager. As soon as you don’t become a “repeating parrot”, this should help you become a reference into a given topic and help you consolidate an image of association with it.
Finally, we need to think about where we are going to make our mark; which part of what we do is going to be distributed where. The social networks are great for interaction, but not so hot when it comes to storing work, given that the constant stream of content buries most material within a few hours. If you really want a presence that makes sense, then you’ll need to store and manage your material yourself, even if that is no more than keeping an inventory of your participation and organizing your ideas. The idea is not become a famous blogger, but to have a place where you store those articles that attracted your attention, or sources that interest you, comments that you’d like to hold onto. The best place for this is a blog, a page where it’s very easy to create content chronologically, providing links and references: a blog as an open personal archive.
If you do this reasonably well, it is possible that such a repository could end up indexing your name successfully, and of course you can beef up the strategy by buying your own domain using your own name, or by applying SEO techniques that don’t require you to do anything strange or to reinvent yourself, and that can function as a kind of ongoing CV, and that you can also use as a diary fed by the milestones marking out your route map.
At the end of the day, it’s simply a question of getting organized: a means of professional development focused more on the self and what we are doing or saying, a place that can really provide value as professionals working within a specific area. This is really just the logical development for tools that increasingly reflect our lives and that are part of the space within which we express ourselves professionally and personally. It’s about applying a strategy to tools that many of us thought had some other use, and that we overlooked or even regarded as a waste of time: the social networks as a way of helping to define us as people.
(En español, aquí)
