Your grandpa’s a tweeter

He’s a what? 

At some point you may be thinking, “well, the people I’m trying to reach aren’t on Facebook, they aren’t on Twitter, they just don’t use social media” and you may well be right.  The first step to any social media plan is determining where your people are and what they prefer for communication.  Of course far too often we make assumptions about the people we’re trying to reach and that is a big, bad no-no.  Even if you don’t make assumptions the world is changing, quickly, so what might have been true yesterday isn’t necessarily true today.

Don’t believe me?  Well this last year the use of social media grew remarkably for both boomers and “matures” (those from 63-75 years old).  So yes, your grandpa may well be a tweeter, or be on Facebook.  And even if your grandpa isn’t, many are and there are more joining all the time.  The lesson here is don’t assume your market doesn’t use social media.  Even if they aren’t big on it just yet they probably will be, and wouldn’t it be nice if you were there ready to meet them when they show up?

And for those of you who need to convince someone somewhere that social media is valuable here’s an article talking about how social media is the top priority for marketers in 2010… if they think it’s important shouldn’t you?

And this is why I want to go to NTEN

This article is simply great.  Unfortunately we don’t get the whole story unless we go to NTEN, something I’ve wanted to do since I first heard of it.  Perhaps next year I’ll save up and get there!

Posting this article because it speaks to a lot of problems I’ve seen lately on Facebook and blogs.  I’ll summarize what I see as the really important points here.

First, who are you talking to?  If you’re posting to Facebook who is following you there?  Clients, customers, supporters, funders, family, friends, volunteers?  Are your posts targeted to your listeners?  Are your posts appropriate for the people on your fan list?  While I suspect your posts won’t make it into Failbook (not appropriate for all viewers) you may well annoy the heck out of your following and lose them in the process if you don’t at least consider this with each post you make.  Each group wants different information so make sure your posts to Facebook or Twitter or wherever take that into account.

Second major point, schedule your communications.  One of my favorite sites needs to learn this lesson.  Why?  Because often they don’t post anything and then, suddenly, they post 10 full article links on Facebook right in a row.  While I can guarantee that I would like to read at least half of these articles do you know how many I read when they’re posted one right after another?  None.  Not one.  I know I’m not going to have time to look at all of them and frankly I’m just annoyed that this information is flooding my Facebook stream.  The same is true with twitter or blog posts.  Give me a bit at a time and I’ll pay attention.  Drown me in information and I’ll run screaming. Smaller bites of information are far more edible.

On that end Hootsuite is on my list of things to check out to schedule Seattle Free School twitter posts.  So often we have lots to say and we want to get it down now so we don’t forget to post something.  Not a problem, just don’t send it out all at once.

Another thing that drives me nuts is the stuffy language people use to post.  Yawn.  I don’t want to read your college thesis.  Stop utilizing using big words and formal writing.  Facebook, twitter and other social media sites are not peer reviewed professional journals,  they are collections of real people who want to be able to skim what you’re saying and get the idea quickly.  That can’t be done with overly technical or excessively formal writing.  And because writing for the web isn’t something taught in school check out this great resource from ifPeople “Writing for the Web“.

 Here’s the article from Tirza Hollenhorst of ifPeople on NTEN.  Oh, and I’m definitely taking donations, tickets or offers to cram myself into your suitcase to get to NTEN!