I’m not going to regurgitate Amber Naslund’s stellar post on creating a social media system. I blogged about my own ideas about a week ago, returning limited results by a showing of no comments. You have to wonder… what makes people on Twitter popular enough to be mentioned on Twitter’s most influential Tweeters list? It has everything to do with interactivity.Interactivity is not a one-way streak; it’s mutual. So why does everyone think someone is going to comment on their blog when they’re not out there working for it? I’ve finally figured it out from my aggregator tool Feedburner that Daily Axioms’ highest blog traffic comes from guest commenting. It’s then that I realize my comments matter, and also when I receive e-mails from the blog authors themselves hoping I come back and visit soon.
You’re probably wondering why I’m using Twitter and blogs interchangeably. Umm… if you haven’t figured out that one leverages the other… yikes. That’s a sure-fire indicator you need to create a social media system. Twitter is used a lot for link building purposes with the help of Tiny URL or some other shortener. It makes sense that, since the space is so short itself, quick links would be a viable option.
There really is no set path to being the best at interactivity, but avoid fragmenting spaces like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, etc, so as to look like an expert. Let your interactivity with people on these spaces be the deciding factor of whether or not someone considers you’re worth listening to when it comes to social media consultancy. It’s #followfriday, so if you’re not following this person, you’re missing out on conceptual and hands-on understanding of interactivity.
Time to take the interactivity test
If you answer “yes” to one of the questions below, you need to create a social media system—goals for yourself that will help you thrive at interactivity:
1) Are you skim-reading blog posts and searching for something to say?
2) Are you looking desperate on Twitter by vigorously reading the first feed page and @ replying those people with “haha” or “good post!”?
3) Are you searching for the top Twitter users with more than 1,000 followers and @-kissing them (more on this term later, but you can guess what it means ;)?
4) Are you on LinkedIn joining all the social media groups and then using them to build your credibility on your profile?
5) Are you trying too hard overall, meaning are you finding the lack of “natural” in what your next move is?
I’ve answered “yes” to all of these except 3&4 because I know better now. What about you?