Today in social media

The Point: There is a lot of Junk parading as social media tools these days. Some last, like twitter, and become useful. Others just... die. Like Swurl. Don't get lost in all the chaos, pick your medium of communication and stick with it.

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The title of this posting might lead you to believe I know, or even care about what the new rage in social media is today.

I don't.

Well, maybe I care a little bit because I don't like to feel too old. But anyway, I digress. It was during a conversation with a beautiful young lady about breaking into the world of communications, that I stumbled into how truly daunting, and confusing the world of Internets 2.0 could be. I (and others who have had the pleasure of meeting me) would agree that I am a fairly intelligent and technologically savvy person. So when even I begin to mentally flail and sputter while trying to explain how to go about implementing a social media campaign, I believe it's time for people to get serious.

The problem is that there are so many gimmicks and fads out there (think Swurl), and many more being created each day, which instantly seem to act like geek flypaper! And of course, if all the geeks (I sometimes count myself amongst those ranks) are on new platform XYZ, and you hope to communicate with us, then of course you're gonna have to follow us right? Not necessarily, but this constant influx of short lived fads tends to complicate the landscape and make it a pain for any would-be born-again geek to join the ranks of their forefathers.

My suggestions? Spend some time trying to figure out what exactly your goals are for implementing a social media campaign. Try to identify your target audience, and get an idea of what messages you hope to be sending them. Figure out what the best medium of communication would be to send those messages (not everything is twitter appropriate). And remember that you don't HAVE to do EVERYTHING! Granted, having a Facebook page is almost a no-brainer, especially since (it is rumored that) Facebook has plans to take over the world. It's also not a bad idea to have a youtube channel if you have videos that people may want to see. Besides those two, I don't believe I would rank any other social media tool as an "almost-necessity" ("almost" because not everyone has something sensible to say via youtube!)

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