Social Media and audience part 2

I’ve discussed the value of niched social media sites for businesses, but lets focus on the big three as well: Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter. These are the sites that just about everyone knows about, but not surprisingly what people know is usually not accurate to the reality of each site. For example, I’ve heard that Linkedin is a job hunting site, which I only partially accurate to what Linkedin really is, or I’ll hear how people don’t really get Twitter, and usually haven’t even gotten an account for it. And Facebook…sometimes the only thing people see about Facebook is the number 250 million…for the 250 million people on it.

It’s pretty clear that there’s a lot of misconceptions about these sites and how they can be used. I can’t tell you how many business owners I’ve met who set up a twitter or Facebook profile and then quit, frustrated by the interface and unsure how being on those sites helped their business. There’s a lot of hype about these sites, but not a lot of good explanations about the importance of them.

Just as with niche social media sites, its important to identify the audience using the site, as well as the underlying purpose for using it. Linkedin is a site for professionals, job hunters, and entrepreneurs, while Facebook tends to be more family and friends oriented. In fact, Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin are niched social networking sites. They just happen to be very popular sites as well.

When we recognize that they are niched sites, we can then begin to determine if the audience on them fits or if it doesn’t. For instance just because Facebook has 250 million users doesn’t mean its an automatic fit for your business. In fact, it may not be an automatic fit, if your business can’t find an audience on there.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t use these sites, but you should consider carefully if there is an audience for you on these sites and how you will reach them effectively and memorably. For instance, until recently I didn’t feel Facebook was a very effective medium for my business. Then I started watching how other people used their fan pages and groups and I realized how I could leverage it more effectively to reach my target audience. Suddenly Facebook seemed to be a lot more useful than it had been before, but I had to identify how other people were using it, in order to determine how I could use it to reach my audience.