Innovating Email List Marketing

How to get voted “Most Popular” in social media

By Jade Ingmire, Social Media Maven and all-around Popular Girl (ask anyone)

Whereas traditional marketing relies on hard dollars, social media relies on soft etiquette. How you conduct yourself, who you know, and how well you play by the rules will determine your success in breaking into this 2.0 social scene but good. Make no mistake; the stakes of such an alliance are high. Like the cliques you envied in high school, the social media sphere can go from purring to poker-faced at even the smallest breach, and you’ll be the one left wondering, “What did I do wrong?” Well, I’ll tell you-and I’ll also tell you how to ensure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’ll be basking in the glow of social media acceptance for as long as the space is hot. Social Media Finishing School is officially in session, so let’s begin!

Social media rule #1:Play hard-to-get

It’s the oldest popularity rule in the book, yet it’s against all the laws of social media combined. But between you and me, it works. Forget everything you’ve heard about frequency and the need to post, tweet, and link constantly in order to stay “top of mind.”  Not true. The best way to stay “top of mind” is of course to play hard-to-get, waiting to post until that heady, delicious moment when you have something truly quality to say. In other words, make ‘em sweat!

For example, one of my favorite bloggers ModernVenus follows absolutely no consistency with her blog posting patterns. Sometimes she’ll post a few days in a row, one time she took the entire summer off. Contrary to the popular wisdom of unpopular bloggers, this actually works in her favor to keep her blog “top of mind” for me. I don’t know when it’s coming, which causes me to actively anticipate it. When it comes, it feels like a treat, because I know it was created with a special purpose and it’s going to have something really juicy or newsy inside. It wasn’t created out of “Ho-hum, it must be Tuesday” syndrome.  I see many, many social mediaites who feel the need to tweet, post, and just generally talk around the clock, and I cringe for them just the way you cringe when you see an over-eager guy at the prom chattering away to a group of disinterested girls. Remember, when it comes to social media, words are currency. Use them reverently and sparingly, and you’ll stand out like a unicorn in a crowd of magpies.

Popularity Pop Quiz: Here’s a quick test you can use to see if your latest blog entry is worth posting. Ask a fellow blogger to summarize what the post is going to say based on the title.  If they can guess every point exactly, ie “Why Social Media is like Star Wars” don’t post it. It doesn’t have the element of fresh thinking or surprise needed for a truly worth hard-to-get post. And if you have one of those bosses who tries to force you to post thirty posts a week to your blog, print out this article, give it to him, and tell him a real-life social media maven sent you!

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blogging, social media, social media etiquette