Oct 09
11
Best practices tip: post high value messages to build your brand
Have you got some connections or friends you hear from just a little too often? Do you get “message overload”?
Social media sites and social networking have fast become part of our culture over the past few years, and are seeing a tremendous spike in both popularity and usage among many age groups.
The end result is that there are so many ways to “connect” and “message” people now, and therein lies the problem – the tendency of many to share too much information of little value; these messages can become very annoying “time wasters”.
I wrote a recent Examiner article that addresses this problem, and offers some suggestions for qualifying messages BEFORE sending, and provides some other tips, as well. Some topics discussed are:
• Do your messages add value? Would others want to share them?
• Protect your brand – send out messages that add value
• Think BEFORE you send – ask yourself “so what?”
• Hiding messages from “spammers”
Think BEFORE you connect
Decide on the type of connections you want to pursue. People who share similar industry experience, club and organizational interests, career networking groups, civic groups, etc. may become strong connections. Pursuing professional connections – industry leaders and those with similar career interests may provide valuable content worthy of sharing, and increase the size of one’s network. Connecting with too many people with little or no common interests runs the risk of receiving messages of little value to you, and you may even get “information overload” – too many messages too frequently.
Takeaways:
- Think “so what” BEFORE you post messages
- “Quality”, not “quantity”
- “Less is more” when it comes to messages; build your brand as someone who shares valuable content, not someone who “spams” others with too many messages of little value.
From a recent Facebook article I wrote, a few tips on using Facebook professionally also apply here:
- “Less is more” when it comes to pictures and the number of wall updates, so don’t post too many pictures or too many wall updates, or you may turn people off and lose friends.
- Keep content relevant to your business, career, job or professional interests, avoid political ideology, and any controversial subject matter.
- Only accept friend requests from people you know well so you can avoid any “surprises”.
Tip: If someone you sends you too many messages or you don’t care for the subject matter they contain, you can always “Hide” the messages from that friend so you no longer get them.
- Daulton West, Jr. , aka ”DWestJr” on Twitter
