Yeah, you’ve said it to your kids, right? “Why do I have to do this mom??” “Because I said so.” That is where I find myself these days when it comes to my consulting business and the advice that I give to people. But I don’t always follow my own advice, for one reason or another. But that doesn’t make my advice any less true, it just makes me look stupid.
For example, one of the big problems that business make in using social media is broadcasting the same message to all their channels. The tools available today (some of which I use daily) make it really easy to manage all your social media channels in one place, one application, one website. But that has a downside, because the tools are so easy to use that it is very easy to get lazy and just put check marks next to the social media channels you want your post/tweet/status update to go to.
And it is true, you know. Different social media channels expect different things. The people who follow you on your various social media channels have different demographics, different expectations, and different behaviors. So you have to tailor your message and the delivery of your message to each channel. What makes this even more critical is that you will have some followers who do follow you everywhere, on all your social media channels. So when they look at your Twitter feed, your Facebook Note, and your LinkedIn status update and see the exact same message, they will ask themselves why they bother to follow you everywhere if the message is the same for all your channels.
That is where I find myself these days. I am so incredibly busy with my fingers in so many different pies that every day is a challenge to me to get everything done. Even with the awesome tools that I have at my disposal, I am still a one-man-shop who has to do everything myself and I simply don’t have time some days to breath, much less to tailor my tweets and status updates to my various channels. So I don’t take my own advice and I post the same message to my various channels to save myself some time. And I cringe every time I press the submit button because I know I shouldn’t be doing this. But I want to send the information along to those people who do follow me because I want to provide some sort of value to them. At least, that is my intention.
So I am at the point where I need to make some changes. For example, I have 2 main Twitter accounts that I use daily, and I am questioning why. I need to close one of them because I don’t have time to properly manage them both, but I am torn emotionally about it. Yes, I am emotionally torn about Twitter accounts. [insert ridicule here].
So my final unsolicited advice to you is this… do as I say, not as I do. And if you happen to see the same message posted on my various social media channels, cut me some slack. After all, I am emotionally torn.
