Traveling along the highway of organization social media adoption, you’ll find half-baked first attempts on almost every major social network (Image Litter Lout by Smabs Sputzer). Blogs, Flickr accounts, Facebook pages, YouTube channels, Twitter streams and even Ning networks, these launched initiatives usually span 2 weeks to 2 months of activity and then are left in the ether to die. Yes, there’s lots of social media litter.
It seems almost every company or nonprofit trying to adapt these days has social scars on their online brand skin. Many try a social media form, find it difficult (or results hard), and leave. This organizational Internet litter — often intended to be picked up again at some point — demonstrates a few things:
Why not just close the accounts? Or if holding the brand name is important, post something indicating absence and where to contact the organization. The notice could say as little as we are no longer active here, but an intent to keep old content alive. That’s what I did with the Now Is Gone blog.
It reminds me a lot of Web 1.0 when old web sites would be half built, under construction, or worse, 404 errors. The message is we don’t care about you, delivering a frustrating brand experience. Just take the time and clean up your social media litter. It makes the Internet a more enjoyable place.
Kudos on this from the Now is Gone blog: “There are only so many basic lessons and primers you can give.”
That’s an instructive comment for all social media initiatives, professional and personal. The value is in the content and interaction, not just in establishing a presence for your brand. Gotta know when to fold ‘em…
Have you read this from the NYT: “Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest” http://bit.ly/aLg66
Yes, actually it’s the first link. Great article.
Ah, whoops! I’m guilty of clicking through a very small percentage of links in posts, and the text on that one wasn’t a point that I disagreed with.
BTW, I’m almost done reading Now Is Gone; solid, hype-free primer that I plan to pass on to my CEO who’s finally understanding the big picture and where new media fits into it. Planning a review on my blog, too.
Keep up the good work!
Or, even better yet, if the social network supports RSS feeds, provide a feed to where you ARE active. That way the profile updates and you look like you are active there, even when you are not. Unfortunately not all social networks allow you to automatically import RSS feeds from elsewhere and display it.
Couple ideas:
1.) Show your Twitter posts in Facebook as a Facebook Status using the Twitter Facebook Application.
2.) Have your Facebook Status update your Plaxo Status.
3.) Have your LinkedIn Group display RSS Feeds from your group’s websites.
4.) Have your LinkedIn Profile display RSS Feeds from your Blog or other appropriate website.
5.) Have your RSS Feed appear in your Facebook Profile.
6.) Use FriendFeed to consolidate updates on where you are active, and then use the RSS functionality (or Facebook Application) to import it into your various profiles.
And I am sure there are more. If you can figure out how to automatically update things, you appear active in more places yet have to post separately less. After all, why change your Facebook Status, Plaxo Status and post on Twitter separately, when you can post on Twitter, which automatically updates your Facebook status which automatically updates your Plaxo status? ;)
Guy: Thank you! Very kind words. And I never expect folks to click through. It’s value add. ;)
Sage advice. How many of us have started an account here or there and have long since abandon it (personal and biz accounts). Terrific call to action to clean up ‘our’ litter on the Internet. Thanks,
Great advice… Keep it tidy. Project unclutter. Rgds Vince
Great reminder Geoff. All too often these abandoned efforts do more damage than not having a presence at all.