“p…123 men’s casual shirts   http://did—.com?=29… @pgiblett @pklicht @Market_Markee“

or

“a…more pc desktop computers  http://did—.com?=…f5 @mikaelaekholm @blake_a_crone @Buzz_Winkle @pgiblett @pklicht“

Now the name of the sender and the name of the site have been changed here in order that they do not provide further free advertising and none of the links are active, simply coloured for clarity.

One of the point that I made in my recently published book “Is your Business Ready for the Social Media Revolution?” is:

“The traditional mode for advertising is about one-way communication, yet to leverage social media it is essential to build a trust based marketing approach. Yes, Twitter can be a cheap way to advertise, but if advertising is all you are there for then people will soon ignore you, stop following you, or worse block you ensuring they never see what you have to say ever again.”

Sending out a post like this one when it has some relevance to the recipient (in this case the person whose @username is mentioned) can assist in their choices, but they need to be of relevance to some activity that person is involved in. e.g. a purchase decision.

The danger of this type of communication is that the recipient may see it as not relevant to them, and worse an annoyance. When communications of this type continue to arrive from this user it can belittle them in the eyes of the recipient. Articles in this column have talked about the need to build trust. Trust is important in social media. With tv, newspapers, and magazines we see adverts everyday, we expect it in that media. If the advert is relevant we look further, irrelevant and we ignore it. Social media messages on the other hand imply a connection with another person, often not the case with these type of advertisements.

In these cases the link went to a blog page and not to an on-line offer, but the effect is the same it is advertising that is designed to take traffic to the site in question. Furthermore having traced posts by one of the senders it is clear that the post content e.g. “men’s casual shirts” “pc desktop computers” (from the examples shown above) bear little resemblance to the target web page. What the advertiser is trying to do is simply drive traffic to their target site, and Twitter does easily facilitate this.

There is nothing wrong with telling people about things that you have done or informing them about products you have to sell yet it really should be done in a way that is relevant to that person and not in the format of a blatant advertisement. This is about the TRUST based relationships that we build on social media. Yes, tell people about your products, but don’t break the trust you have built up over time.

But of course the opposite of liking something is not represented in any way. Should we be able to dislike a post? Yet of course there is a little element of social responsibility that needs to happen here. Surely whether you like of dislike something said you should justify your stance or tell the person what you do not like. There is often value in criticising what a person has said – it assists them in learning and growing.

Perhaps the real point here is not disliking something but disagreeing with something said, after all this is merely one person’s opinion that is represented. This is always valid for a debate on any professional subject. The fact that two people can disagree on a specific point is not bad; it merely means there is no general acceptance of the issue at hand. Debate can be good and social media is a powerful place for discussions on any subject. This is one aspect that makes LinkedIn Answers such a powerful part of that network, because it is possible to ask a question in such a way that allows for debate to occur on the issue.

Toastmasters is a respected organisation that assist people through the challenge of public speaking. Part of that process is evaluation and when any person’s speech is being critiqued then both positive and negative points are viewed as a part of the learning process. Thus the speaker learns both what they have done well and what they have done poorly; this helps them through their next project.

Debates are better aired than allowed to fester.

—-

Peter Giblett’s new book “Is your Business Ready? For the Social Media Revolution” is now available on Amazon.

Sadly there are many so-called ‘Social Media Marketing experts’ talking on this subject on a daily basis. The majority of these are merely advertising people who are simply advising businesses on how to leverage Social Media sites as a tool for traditional advertising. Lets be clear here – there is nothing wrong with leveraging the channel as an advertising mechanism. However advertising only has a tiny part to play in leveraging the Social Media Channel for business success. What is far more important is being involved in the ongoing dialogue. Therefore it is important to take a more holistic view in defining a strategy to manage your social media intervention.

One aspect of Peter Giblett’s new book “Is your Business Ready for the Social Media Revolution?“, is moving away from advertising based marketing towards building a dialogue with customers, prospects and the industry at large.

There are three pillars to leveraging Social Media for business success:

• • Building a communication & collaborative capability
• • Intelligent intervention in the marketplace
• • Generating revenue as a trusted adviser

Some advertising specialists think only in terms of generating in income from this channel, but this approach will not ultimately lead to success. So lets look at each of these in turn.

Communications & Collaboration

The whole history of business involves communication, in-fact trade or barter may have been one of the reasons we humans learned to talk. Humans are adaptive creatures and new communications capabilities will always be arriving, in fact it seems to be a large part behind driving many technological advances. Today we face a changing world of business communications where everything is more rapid, in short bite sized chunks. We naturally want to be involved in a dialogue before we buy anything, the net result is that we want to be able to trust those products that we decide to purchase.

From a business standpoint part of that dialogue involves a wide range of people who are involved in getting any product to market. This more than ever before is a collaborative process. In the past collaboration has been about reaching out via email, we often forget to involve all the knowledge-holders within an organisation, let alone with suppliers, customers etc. Collaborative efforts have always been based on team membership.

The collaborative challenge today demands the involvement of a wider audience, including suppliers, customers, and other partners we are able to improve the level of communication and take appropriate action. Understanding that a customer’s business is closing early on Wednesday for a corporate event and keeping the trucking partner in the loop will ensure that deliveries are re-scheduled and arrive at an appropriate time for processing. Included are industry experts; don’t know the answer to a problem – look it up on-line or find an expert. Social media is bringing those experts closer to your business as a normal resource and in many cases without paying an exorbitant fee (although you should always expect to pay for valuable contributions).

The section “Invest On Relationships” discusses the value to be gained from improving collaboration within the workplace. Everyone has competencies they bring with them from either their social life or prior workplace. They have a sphere of collaboration, starting with themselves, expanding to the people they work with. This builds through teams and departments to the company as a whole. Each step potentially adds expertise. Ultimately it is the individual spheres of influence touch customers, suppliers, and third party partners with whom we are able to build a trusting relationship over time.

Intelligent Intervention

When people are talking about your brand your finger needs to be right on the pulse! The response needs to be immediate, proportionate and relevant.

Googling your brand or company should show your web-site to the top of the search results, but it is unlikely to show what someone just said about you on Twitter. Using traditional search engines it takes time and a lot of effort to discover what was said yesterday. A negative blog may take months to discover via traditional search. This is where it is important to build a social media intelligence capability. is about knowing what is being said about a product and having a plan to respond proportionately in any given situation. The triggers are questions about ‘What is being said about my organisation, my product, my competitors?’ To a large extent these are traditional market research questions, but we have never before had such a powerful view about people’s thinking. People are giving their views every day about topics that may have some relevance to your business. It is driven by what is important to people at a specific point in time.

In addition we can link this general knowledge with a knowledge of the views of customers, when retaining social media ID’s of customers when they make on-line comments (and remember there may be many). This information is closely allied to marketing intelligence.

Monitoring solutions are available that will automatically monitor the Internet buzz and throw up an alert when action is needed. Rewarding recommendations is a key. What do you do when an independent person spontaneously says something good about your product and company? At the very least it is important to thank them, one airline thanked a customer by giving a 25% discount on flights because of something said on Twitter.

Helping people with their problems is one of the best ways of intervening in the marketplace. Solving someone else’s problem will win you kudos, even if the person does not use your product. What happens next time they are looking to buy? You will be high on their wish list and possibly the only candidate.

Revenue Opportunity

Advertising on the Social Media channel will generate an income, but this will generally be at the same rate as advertising on the Internet. We may be able to tweak this a few points by focusing advertising campaigns towards specific demographic groups. But this is not where the real power of the medium lies. For business the Social Media channel is based on trust and expertise. You have to demonstrate expertise in order to build trust, and it is this that will ultimately bring revenue.

This is where leveraging this channel requires a shift in thinking. The marketing communication budget is not simply about advertising, it must now think about customer involvement. A corporation’s ability to leverage the Social Media channel to collaborate and be involved in the marketplace becomes important. It builds a revenue based on trust and expertise in specific areas.

A prospective customer who has found you through a specific Social Media is interested in the services that you have to offer, they will come to you because they already trust you and they are interested in your product. Hey isn’t this better than Yellow Pages?

The ROI of Social Media

Social Media can be viewed by many as the current must-have, but at what cost? Are corporations setting aside the ROI in order to jump start their enterprise social media presence?

It has been said that it is not possible to identify an ROI for collaborative improvements and that we only see the real improvements in the rear-view mirror. Yet defining an ROI for any project or proposed solution is about producing a best estimate at the time the need is perceived. That is as relevant for any Social Media project as it is for any other corporate change. Remember the major impact of social medial is more in the area of business than with the technology that underpins it.

The other aspect here is about contributing to an improvement in business results. This should be measurable through Business Intelligence. It is valid to measure the contribution made by Social Media to the bottom line. This must include a value for the collaborative effort, and for web intervention (including the real value from promotions offered). Spending should be appropriate, but will always be based on business drivers.

—————————-

This article is based on segments of Peter Giblett’s new book “Is your Business Ready? For the Social Media Revolution”. This book is now available on Amazon.

Despite the change to the mega corporation this rule is still an important aspect of marketing. It is perhaps even more important today than at any time in the past because it impacts products that we cannot yet purchase and can impact a prospects future buying behaviour. In the social media world this rule also applies. When the iPhone 4 was released it was only available within the USA, yet people in Canada, UK, France, and in other places wanted the product before it was available on the shelves in their local phone provider. This demand was fueled by Social Media and people’s ability to tell their friend’s around the world about this product through Facebook, Twitter etc.

Saying that in the social media world this rule still applies, it is crucial to understand there is one crucial advantage that can be leveraged, the ability to monitor what is said and reward people if appropriate. People trust their friends (whether off-line or on-line) the most; they even have a tendency to trust the word of a stranger on-line, when that voice seems both genuine and authoritative. What is said can impact future marketing plans for any product.

Most products do not achieve a viral global demand, yet social media is one of many methods by which we can get your message spread out to a wider audience than ever before. As a general rule when someone says something good about your brand then it is appropriate to thank them for their kind words. On some occasions a valuable reward may be appropriate; e.g. a discount airline ticket for a future flight. Generally though the simple thank you carries a lot of mileage; especially from a well respected, global, brand.

It is not just customers we need to thank. The online world is full of contributors and the independent review can become a superb sales asset provided it is timely and focused. The word of a well respected industry expert can be a powerful ally.

Finding these articles is a part of building a social media intelligence capability. With blogs of course the pertinent information can be hidden behind the headline. Most major corporations employ people to analyse press coverage, a natural extension to that role is to peek behind the covers of blog articles.

So far this article has looked at the positive aspects, yet in the real world we also know that people say bad things about us, or even worse take action with their feet. It is the corporation’s response to criticism and bad things that are said on-line that is perhaps more crucial. This is where a slick marketing response is probably the worst approach; it is better to have one of the product designers offer to help the customer. A simple apology often goes a long way, but frequently it is necessary to contact the customer outside of the social media channel in order to turn the situation around. This has the advantage of turning a potential critic into a loyal customer, because some mega-corporation took the time to resolve his specific issue. Remember we live in an increasingly cynical world.

Analysing social media activity about our brand or product should become part of our business intelligence capability. Yet analysing social media has a more personal side. If someone is talking about your product you should be prepared to open a dialogue with that person. They may assist indirectly in your on-line marketing efforts. Flattery will often get you everywhere with people, have the head of production talk to them rather than a marketing person. It is a case of appropriateness. Essentially it is important to create an ongoing relationship.

Much of the answer is about knowing your customer and what drives their behaviour. Indeed there is a whole branch of psychology about how consumers think, feel, reason, and what drives them to select between different alternatives (e.g., brands, products, and the retailers they use). That same psychology can also give some clues to the Social Media choices that individual may make.

Let us be clear here that whether the customer/prospect is an individual or a corporation it is a person that will make the final decision to purchase or not. Get inside their mind at the precise moment of that decision and we may have the key to the greatest breakthrough in customer relationship management. Without it we have to understand generally held knowledge about what drives the customer.

The customer will use different criteria according to the different types of purchase that they are making. There is a distinct difference between buying in a closed office from an on-line store than in a shopping mall with friends ever present. Individuals are influenced by those around them.

If we look at the decision to purchase a camera. Through the web we may look at the possible candidates, know the specifications, prices, capabilities, accessories available etc. Yet going out to the mall to look at the specific models and having just decided on the right model to purchase one friend makes a passing remark “I wouldn’t buy that one it doesn’t look kewl“. Logic has taken you to the edge of the purchase – it has everything you want, it is on your shortlist, and it feels right. The friend has used emotion and potentially an irrational thought to dissuade you from making the purchase, even worse they may persuade you to purchase something you don’t want.

Moving into the world of Social Media it is possible to have the same influences act upon the purchaser as at the shopping mall. The influential friend will have an opinion, but then so can 200 other people that you are connected to, even including the manufacturer, or an industry expert. Ask the question – Which camera should I buy on Facebook and you will receive a wide variety of opinions. The answers that stand out will be the ones that answer the question and give a reasoned logic. If one of the answers comes from a manufacturer and gives a fair overview of where their camera performs better than others listed and where it under-performs the competition then it is possible that you have a logical basis upon which a decision can be made.

“The X-12 gives a superior depth of field when in landscape mode”

or

“The Y-7 provides excellent portrait options”

This information can aid in the final purchase. is the buyer interested in portraits or landscapes? This may be at the nub of their purchase decision – the logic that can seal the deal in the mind of the purchaser.

Going back to the original question where do we find our customers and prospects? To a large extent they will find you by just being available on the communities they are active on. Yet with some specialist products it is important to be active in the right places. A corporation selling health-care products needs to be active on a community where health-care professionals congregate.

In addition almost every organisation needs to have a brand or product presence on Facebook and Twitter. Being present is generally enough to build a following. Yet the following you build and the amount of trust generated will increase if you are active in the community.

Since then activity on the site seems to have waned significantly. More correctly that is the activity of those within my network, it may of course be different with the people in your network. Wave’s biggest problem has always been: “What would I use it for?” and I have heard this question so many times. First and foremost Wave is a product that will be used to communicate and collaborate. It has the capability of extending the collaboration in a team, project, or corporate community. It should be used with existing connections, it is not really for networking and building new connections.

I have explained the power of building documents by collaboration to my business partners, but there is still a preference to “Send me a copy and I will take a look while at the cottage this weekend”; with Wave there is no copy – it is all on-line. That is of-course one stumbling block – the whole world is not yet connected. People do walk away from a reliable DSL line from time to time and the collaborative document is not available in cottage country, or even on a plane.

Wave has several types of templates that can be opened:

* Discussion: Introduce a topic; make several alternative proposals; obtain feedback

* Task Tracking: to define a set of collaborative tasks and review progress.

* Meeting and Agenda

* Brainstorming: to allow ideas on a discussion topic to flow.

* Document: Everything you need to create a collaborative document

Of course it is still possible to open a plain, blank Wave. But in adding these templates Google has put thought into how we might use the product. From a project perspective it may be possible to introduce a discussion or a brainstorm wave and at a later stage pull the key ideas into a document wave.

From everyone that I have talked to about Wave it is the idea of synchronicity that is the largest challenge. Each person needs to understand the advantages of working synchronously, this can for some be a challenge, because they follow the activity of others rather than focusing on their own contribution. In the documents that I have created I have been the only participant of the wave when I have gone through my initial thinking, no matter how rough or polished the item – the reason: to get the initial thought documented before opening it up to comment from others. The great thing here is that the document can have gaps, sections where your thinking is incomplete – I have found it important to state something like “{{FURTHER THOUGHT REQUIRED}}” at those points where you desire additional input otherwise others may take your incomplete statement as a complete view and never change what you have written.

One of the biggest challenges can be about deleting elements of a document. There can be two views of the correct form of words to be used, but you do not want a war between two participants over one small section of the document.

A method by which it is possible to link the contents of  traditional emails into a Wave is one area that still needs to be addressed by Google. It is clear today that there are big challenges to adopting Wave in certain sectors of the community, where email is an important tool. Perhaps an application that works on the Blackberry will be a giant step forwards. It is already possible to use Wave on the iPhone through the browser and even possible to remove the Safari wrapper for Wave to appear as a fully functioning program. There is an application for Android phones, although from recent chatter this is problematic. Get over smart-phone usage problems and this may enhance Google Wave usage.

I am yet to meet any person or corporation that is using Wave at the heart of their communications strategy, so the feeling is more dead halt than wave of the future at this time. We should continue to look back at this product.

In this case moving the weekly status meeting from 4pm on Tuesday to 10am on Thursday allowed Alex to leave on-time every week and not miss large sections of his class. It also allowed others in the team to take part in the  the regular friendly football games that evening, boosting their fitness and energy levels.

Leadership is complex and naturally enough it is primarily focused on achieving corporate or business goals, yet often paying attention to the little things can make the important things run smoothly. These days most people are working extra hours and handling more tasks than ever before, but is this a reason for forgetting that people have personal lives and that time off recharges personal batteries.

Staff in the accounting and administration department for one company were forced to work compulsory overtime every weekend for one whole day in order to sort out the accounting mess that had arisen due to a business acquisition and procedural changes. This compulsory overtime lasted for a period of five months. By the end of the period every member of staff was complaining how drained they felt, some even stated that  working the extra day achieved nothing as their productivity was at an all-time low. Such actions may be necessary to solve a specific problem, the accounting consolidation, but there is no reason why the following year there also has to be a repeat performance, just to close the accounts at the year end.

In this case the right procedures needed to be in place to ensure that all the right steps were taken at the appropriate time. We know that there are more complex compliance and regulatory issues that must be managed for any business, but they need to be managed as a part of the normal everyday activities, whether that is by staff or through automated processes is an operation decision to be made. Key here is that doing the right thing at the right time often alleviates the need to clean up a mess later. Again a matter of training for those involved at the coal-face, but it is a question of leadership for the management team.

The key to achieving goals and visions is in managing them through small, yet achievable steps and celebrating each success along the way, as well as learning whatever lessons we can from both our failures and successes. Individual and personal goals, being achieved will help everyone move forward and that is important for the success of a team.

All goals are achievable provided everyone is motivated. Remembering back to our earlier school days obtaining a gold star was a matter of personal pride, particularly when it was on an achievement chart for everyone to see. We are all aware of the challenges facing our organisation. For those in a leading role it is important to both listen and take action when necessary. It is a series of small steps that can often make the difference, and as Neil Armstrong once said “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” What steps are you taking?

It is true that for whatever we post there is an element of broadcasting. That new blog post is posted with the intent that everyone interested in our products or services will see it and will be swayed by our viewpoint. We also tell our social media connections in order that we are able to share the knowledge and in itself spread the news. Normally the intent here is to be seen as a thought leader, indeed we are in the process of using the Internet to build influence, improve reputation and engender trust. That element of broadcasting is about ensuring that our message gets out to all that have an interest in the subject.

When we use Social Media to tell our connections about the post then secretly we have a desire to make the message viral; to have the key influencers across the planet sit up and take note. Yet that is also coupled with anxiety of what will happen as a result of the viral message and whether the business can cope with the subsequent order uplift. In reality we know that our message will only be read by a small percentage of those in our network. It is with that small percentage that we are looking to move from a broadcast to a dialogue. Some of our connections will also be kind enough to pass it on to their network, which will add importance to our message.

This is the true impact of social media and our network. We bring all the power of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, to bear in order to spread the word. Through the power of Social Media search the message can be seen by more than our direct network – it can be seen by those who have an immediate need, which can lead to new business connections and an uplift an sales. It is very much about building trust – place a good article, or video, and people will want to see more. When they see more and it all offers similar quality information they will start to trust you which will bring sales.

In addition to the things we post it is important that we are involved in the dialogue. This is the bigger picture. Jumping into the right conversation at the right time will also build trust. This however must add value and should never be taken as a platform to criticise our competitors product. Social Media is above all an ongoing conversation.

Remember that in society at large there is a level of mistrust, a cynicism that every message that put out  is a con designed to separate the fool from his money. We mistrust government and party politics in general. It is through our posts that we seek to differentiate ourselves from these layers in society. We post to blogs in order to demonstrate our openness and willingness to interact with the marketplace at large and be involved in the key debates in the industry. In order to do this we must also be willing to admit our mistakes or errors. In the digital world it is almost impossible to hide anything. Instead we have to realise that the web is a great connector and our openness is an asset for doing business.

It is a dichotomy that in joining a social network it is important to have people to connect with, yet asking everyone you already know to join may not be the best way to jump-start that activity for any new network. An as yet undiscovered social network will bring with it new challenges and new opportunities to connect that may not be relevant to your existing connections. People use different networks for different purposes, there are plenty of people that only use Facebook for social activity, and would never consider using it for business focused networking, which is where they might use LinkedIn.

This is fine, but it does not suit everyone, this writer has an active Facebook account, and never uses it for connections that are purely social in character. The upshot is that children, nieces, and nephews, are not in the ‘friend’ list because it is not appropriate, yet we communicate by telephone, mail, and email regularly. On a networking front we have little in common to share. In this case connecting offers neither person any benefit.

So how many networks should you join and be active on? This is a difficult question to answer as the factors that impact your available time will be key here and you will have to make the decision here. Remember the key word here is “ACTIVE” – being a member of a site and using it once per year is not being active. It means setting aside some time, albeit a small amount, each day or each week to participate  The job seeker may have more time to spend than the busy executive. and is recognised that an individual’s ability to be active changes over time. But each person’s ability to spend time on-line will depend on how busy they are in the real world.

Generally you should look to be active on those networks that have the potential to give you the greatest return for your time and efforts.

It may seem strange to be talking of ‘self’ when everyone knows the first rule of social networking to be assisting someone else. In joining any social network the first thing you should consider is how you, your corporation, or your brand will leverage it. If the site has no relevance to you or your business then do not join. Of course when you do join the way to connect and give value is to help others resolve their problems, but it is not the reason to join in the first place.

There are a brand of social networkers that want you to join them on a plethora of sites. The specific social media site may in itself be useful to you. Make your own decision about what is best for you. Maybe they have a useful new site that you have never considered before.

For every positive comes some negatives. One of these is the ‘Social Spammer”. They are simply using social media to bolster the apparent size of their network. They leverage the total set of connections in order to appear as a super-connector. Yet unlike the genuine  super-connectors they do not facilitate connection building for others, this is a cynical method of building their own mailing list and either sell it, or to use for email based selling.

The problem is how to spot an abuser. At first they appear innocent and maybe initially be the friend you need in order to understand the system you have accidentally come in contact with, then they become a nuisance as that relationship develops.

They do differ from both open-networkers and super-connectors.

Open networkers positively encourage connections from any other person, whether or not they have had a previous business relationship; they do so with the view that connection sharing is better for the whole community. There is a particular brand of open networkers called LIONs, meaning LinkedIn Open Networker given that the concept started by members on the LinkedIn social network. Yet there is a thriving community of LIONs on Facebook and other social sites.

A super-connector is a particular brand of open networker that know and connect people from all walks of life. They have large numbers in their network and are always happy to assist in making a connection and they will always spend a little time to assist a connection. We all know that personal contacts are the key to opening doors and having a super connector in your network can be extremely useful, especially if you cultivate a close relationship with them. They follow the concept that it is good to build acquaintances and the more acquaintances you have, the more powerful you can become.

Steven Burda is a prime example of a super-connector and he is always willing to assist any connection in any way he can. Both open networkers and super-connectors believe strongly in helping others achieve their goals in some small way.

The social spammer can appear as if they are willing to assist – particularly when they encounter a newcomer to the social media world, yet all their assistance is intended to lead to one result building their own contact list – they are not really interested in what you want and once they have your connection details then they act in exactly the same way an email spammer operates, except they leverage the social media context to spread their message.

Social spamming is not yet as wide-spread as its email counterpart but sadly it is here to stay. What are the signs? You need to be looking out for repeated automation. Everyone has allowed a network to discover potential connections from your Outlook address book, then they also possibly sent out invitations using the standard message. You also discovered that this gets a very low response rate as the message is not personalised. For the social spammer this process is repeated hundreds of times and often they also cause the system to ask you to connect even if you have rejected an earlier invitation.

Some networks, like LinkedIn, do limit the number of invitations that can be sent out, and other networks, like Facebook, do not allow the downloading of contact detail data (the .VCF file). There are plenty of ways to find out a person’s email address – once obtained the social spammer can start their activity and once they have you in their social media network then they can bend it to work as they need it.

Being involved in the conversation, or our ability to communicate and collaborate, is of vital importance. This goes a long way to demonstrating expertise and is of vital importance for business involvement in this media. It is all about the ongoing conversation. Stevens makes the point the “It’s no use simply posting messages saying how wonderful your company is”, we should always look for ways to help solve someone else’s problem, it is what adds credence to your viewpoint enhances your credibility.

Responding to questions, and contributing to debates on professional materials in your area of expertise also enhances your personal brand.

Content is king and you always need to offer something useful, topical, and interesting. Blog posts have the added advantage of being referenced again in the future. Having the right balance between contributions on Social Media sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, and others) and adding blog posts needs to be met. Social media contributions tend to be short and sweet, like answering a LinkedIn question, yet a blog post can ofter provide the results of extended research or a more detailed view.

It is all a matter of balance. In the same regard comments can be one of the most valuable, yet underrated, contributions that can be made. Even if taking the opposing view it can always add to the debate and in itself gives support for the efforts of the original author. Stevens makes a valid point when contributing “don’t simply say ‘I agree’ or ‘This is rubbish’” provide a valuable contribution or take an alternative viewpoint.

Consistency is vital, it shows people that you are available and interested in the debate. Does that mean you need to be online 24*7? Certainly not! According to Stevens “Small, regular postings seem to be much more effective than rare long ones”. Real life frequently intervenes and we all have other priorities to manage, yet it is important to contribute and remain active. Pick the important elements that need to be worked on and spend a little time on those.

Think of your own personal branding in this regard as well. You will never be able to intervene with everything, but what you contribute to should be consistent with that brand.

Food for thought.