photo credit: shoothead

You’ve probably seen people on Twitter or Facebook yammering about “Wow, I only need 17 more followers or fans to hit 2000″ (or  10000 or whatever).

If you’ve used Twitter, you know that there’s a curve there and when you round it, it’s like drinking from a firehose.

Stowe Boyd talks a little about the social media scoreboard in today’s guest post, stating that quality rather than quantity is the important factor.

Remember that each of those fans or followers are people. They have needs, wants and presumably they followed/fan’d you because they thought you had something to say. “I’m having a waffle” just isn’t it.

@BillGates doesn’t have 400-500k people following him on Twitter after just a few weeks because they want to hear him talk about Windows or MS Office. Bill is engaging to follow nowadays because he talks about poverty, disease and education – and then puts his money where his mouth is. Lots of it. Almost $300 million for polio, for example.

Engage. Have a *meaningful* conversation.

Think about the folks on Twitter or Facebook whose posts you look forward to. How are they different from yours?

photo credit: James Jordan

Today’s guest post comes from Professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski from the Harvard Business School.

HBS’s Sean Silverthorne summarizes of the article:

Many business leaders are mystified about how to reach potential customers on social networks such as Facebook. “Understanding users of social networks” provides a fresh look into the interpersonal dynamics of these sites and offers guidance for approaching these tantalizing markets.

Key concepts include:

• Online social networks are most useful when they address failures in the real world (Mark: Note the city pairs mentioned in the article).
• Pictures are the killer app of social networks.
• Women and men use these sites differently.
• Businesses shouldn’t consider social networks as just another channel.

The biggest discovery: pictures. 70% of all actions are related to viewing pictures or viewing other people’s profiles.

Knowing that (you really should have known that already, think about it), how does this alter how you present yourself online?

That it isn’t just another channel is something that even some legendary marketing experts still don’t seem to get.

What do I mean? You’ve probably noticed it before but you (like me) maybe didn’t think to say anything about it. 

As you might expect, Hildy said something.

Earlier this week, she commented that even Seth Godin, the Seth that we’ve all learned so much from, doesn’t allow comments on his blog. How is that serving his Tribe?

Even Seth should know (and I’m sure he does) that it’s a conversation, not just a broadcast channel.

Which makes the situation even more curious. Do what Seth says, not what Seth does – at least in this instance.

Or maybe it does.

See what Chris’ argument in today’s guest post, which is chock full of reasons why Twitter just might make sense for your business.

The other night, Chris Brogan twittered that he couldn’t sleep. Not too much later, he tweeted again to say that he ended up writing a blog post.

IMO, he needs to sleep less if this is the kind of stuff he creates when insomnia strikes.

Today’s guest post from Chris is a great getting started roadmap for businesses looking to stick their toe into the social media pond.

photo credit: Joe500D