Aggregator–Aggravator

By Kimberly D. Mackey, MCSP, CMP, Realtor®

 

One of the biggest complaints I get from people who are just starting to use Social Media as part of their overall strategy for marketing is that it takes a lot of time.  And yes, particularly in the beginning as you are learning and setting up your sites, it does take a lot of time.  Then before long, someone tells you about this “really cool tool” that will feed all of your sites at one time.  WOW, you think, this is the answer to my prayers, I can just PUSH messages out there all day long and they will go to all of my sites at one time.  HOLD ON THERE NELLY—NOT SO FAST!

There are a lot of  Aggregators (systems that let you blast out to all Social Media Outlets with one click) out there and it can really be tempting to use them to save time, but you really have to be careful or you will turn off your audience and you will start to see your followers drop off.  Perhaps even worse, is that they just “hide” your updates, so you never even know that you might have done something to offend.  Each site has its own unique “personality” and its own set of etiquette rules.  Please make sure you understand those for each site you are utilizing.

In my opinion, some of the biggest audience turn-offs come when people/companies use Facebook like Twitter.  What do I mean?  On Twitter you can post up to around 30 times per day and no one would think twice about it.  However, on Facebook if you post that many times, you are monopolizing the Newsfeed/Live Feed on your Fans/Friends profile pages and they won’t read it.  In fact, they will have a very adverse reaction to it.  Facebook updates should be limited to a few times per day at the very most.  LinkedIn should probably only be updated a couple of times per week if you really want people to read what you have written.

On Twitter, you might include a whole host of articles regarding positive press about why now is the time to buy or perhaps the $8000 tax credit and you can even use services like Tweetlater.com to have them appear at different times of the day.  Some of the best Tweeters, “re-tweet” their own articles at varying times because you get a different audience at different times through out the day.  Now, let’s say you want to use some of this same information on Facebook.  Pick out only the 1 or 2 top articles you want to share.  Space them out, so you don’t appear to be hogging the Newsfeed of your Fans (and I say Fans instead of Friends because Facebook is a self-prescribed PERSONAL site, your personal profile is just that—PERSONAL.  Per Facebook’s rules, businesses are allowed to have Fan Pages).

Articles or any information you wish to share should be targeted specifically to who your audience is on each site.  If you have more Realtor® followers on Twitter, use specific call to actions or link to your inventory page with several of your Tweets.  If you have more of a customer following on Facebook, you might post great home ownership related items, such as the importance of caulking your windows once per year or new painting techniques that everyone can do, how about gardening and landscape ideas?  Perhaps even feature a happy homeowner each month and have them tell the story in their own words about why they enjoy living where they do and how great their experience was with you.  Run fun contests, but keep them simple.  Support any articles you post on Facebook by also posting them on Twitter (not the other way around).

I use a couple of different Aggregators that I find helpful.  Facebook now allows you to post your Fan Page status updates onto Twitter.  Since this is Facebook TO Twitter, it avoids the problems of doing this the other way around; plus it has the added benefit of allowing you to build your Fans on Facebook because posts that are larger than 140 characters, which is all that is allowed by Twitter will have to be viewed by clicking a link which will take the reader back to your Fan Page.  My Fans on my Facebook Page grew substantially once Facebook made this feature available.  Another Aggregator that I use is a “widget” or programming tool that allows my last 5 Twitter Updates to be posted live right onto the homepage of my website and another one which does the same thing on my blog.  It is always interesting to me when I run into someone who says they don’t have a Twitter account, but who have read my latest Twitter posts.  It turns out that they are following my posts by pulling up my homepage of my website.  Just imagine the potential for your business if you were to add this widget to your site as well.

Blogging is a fantastic way to interact with your target audience, and you can have different blog sites for different audiences.  You should certainly support your blog with your other Social Marketing efforts, but again be careful not to over-expose.  It is my very strong opinion that rather than using an Aggregator to post all of your blog posts on your social media sites just post the occasional one to draw your audience to your blog where they can choose to subscribe. There are some great “widgets” out there that allow you to showcase your blog on your LinkedIn or Facebook Page without using an Aggregator to post every single article.  The danger in posting every single article is that people just tune you out and then begin to never read what you have written.  Now, I have to be careful here because I do believe that you should support your Social Marketing efforts on your blog and visa versa—just don’t overdo it.  For instance, you get an amazing Happy Homeowner comment on your Facebook Fan Page, copy it and post it on your blog and your website.  Also make sure you Tweet it and link back to your blog and website.  Have links on your website and your blog to your Facebook Fan Page and your Twitter and LinkedIn sites.  If you have a YouTube Channel, make sure that your website and blog showcase those and occasionally post links back to them from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  If this sounds like a delicate balance, it is because it is.  I use the ratio of 1:15 +/- with (1) being the self-promoting object and (15 +/-) being the content you post that has nothing to do with direct self-promotion.

So, while it is ok to use Aggregators to some degree—do so cautiously and expeditiously so that you don’t run the risk of turning-OFF the very audience you are trying to turn-ON!

Kimberly Mackey, MCSP, CMP, Realtor®, is the founder of Creative Sales Solutions, which provides sales and leadership training in all aspects of business development — including social media strategy and training — and sales and marketing management and training. For more information, visit the Creative Sales Solutions Web site at www.creativesalesnow.com, or visit Mackey at LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlymackey; Twitter, www.twitter.com/CreativeSales; and Facebook, www.facebook.com/CreativeSalesSolutions.