Over the last week, about one in ten visitors to mb-blog.com have come direct from Twitter. Apparently  my recent post “Are marketers creating a social media bubble?” attracted some attention in the Twitterverse, and this led to an unprecedented surge in visits to the blog. While this level of attention is  very welcome, it will just be a temporary blip unless I can continue to provide content that interests these new visitors. And that poses a dilemma. Do I post what you want to hear or what I want to say?

Of course, this is an age-old dilemma for publishers and brands alike. Take the recent commentary on the social media and viral posts. The topics were obviously of interest but some who commented found fault with my reasoning. So be it. Instead of  trying to please everyone, I present my own point of view it as clearly as I can. If someone offers a compelling counter-argument then I may revise my opinion and republish.

And I believe that brands should follow the same steps when it comes to social media (see my 2006 post on the topic here).  First they need to come up with something that is both valuable to consumers and consistent with what the brand stands for. Then they should try it out, listen to the response and make adjustments if need be. Finally, they need to repeat the process. Many brands fall short at the first step by talking about themselves without offering anything of value to the consumer. And too many brands forget the last step. A conversation is not a one-off line. It is an ongoing process.

Of course, if you want to offer something of value, it helps if you know who you are talking to and what they want. That’s one of the challenging things about writing a blog—it’s hard to be certain who is reading it and what  they think. I know how many people read each post, but only about 1 percent provide feedback by posting comments. Does this vocal minority represent all my readers?  I don’t know. I can only conjecture about the silent majority by looking at where they come from and how many hits each post receives.

According to the AdReaction 2009 study, the odds are that over 1 in 4 of you will be among the most enthusiastic and engaged group of social media users, those called “fanatics.” That would certainly account for the much stronger response to my posts that focused on Twitter and Facebook. According to the DL segmentation, “social media fanatics” are highly involved with the online world, consider themselves ahead of the times, and are likely to be under the age of 34. And 92 percent of social media fanatics are interested in requests for their opinions and ideas.

Whether or not you fit the profile of a social media fanatic, please consider this a request for your opinions and ideas. Why do you visit this blog? What are you interested in? What would you like to hear more about?  Members of the silent majority—I want to hear from you too. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

 Email This Post

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Brands, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Print this Page