This guest post is brought to you by Charlie Davidson, a UK-based blogger focused on internet technology and sharing thoughts on films and novels.
I’m often asked about social networks and the relationship between them. People ask how they fit together and what’s the best way to sync your accounts together –allowing one update to be shared through multiple social network sites. I myself have tied Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn together; surely one update is easier than three, right?
While in theory it makes sense, this isn’t always a good tactic. While on Facebook, I recently saw a friend’s comment that made me chuckle, and gives a perfect explanation as to why.
I did a presentation at my full-time job last week about the importance of social media and what it means to our business, a marketing agency (BIGSHOT). Everyone thought it was a great and informative presentation and I thought I’d share what I offered.
Here’s the video I showed as an introduction:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BIGSHOTmktg Free micro-blogging website where users can only post updates (or “tweets”) of 140 characters or less. Good for promoting website links, coupons, and specials. Has grown from 1.6m to 32.1m users just in the last year.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bigshotKC The most popular social networking/media site, where anyone with a valid email address can join for free. Separated into networks of schools (high school and colleges/universities), companies (they have to apply for their own network), and cities (usually only metros and capitol cities, as of now). Now has over 250m monthly active users (as of July 2009), with 120m users logging on at least 1x/day. The fastest growing demographic is adults ages 35+.
MySpace: Like Facebook, except MySpace offers the ability to completely customize profiles. Bands, Businesses, and Individuals all have profiles, there are no pages. Monthly page views have decreased over 20% in the last year, from 47.4b to 38b. Focus is on music, video, and celebrities.
LinkedIn: For professionals; focused on business and career networking. Their slogan is “Relationships Matter.” Had 43m registered users in over 200 countries as of July 2009. Profile focus is on job experience, skill set, what the user is looking for, and recommendations (references) from other contacts.
Why Should You Care? In the last year, social media has become one of the most influential components of the web. Because of it, newspaper readership has been steadily declining, about 10% from April 2008 to April 2009, according to comscore (during that same time period, online newspaper readership increased 5%). Studies show that internet users also let social media affect their online shopping choices.
le ask how they fit together and what’s the best way to sync your accounts together –allowing one update to be shared through multiple social network sites. I myself have tied Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn together; surely one update is easier than three, right?
