Social Media Refocus: What Site is Next?
Dear Readers, over the past 1.5 years I've spent a tremendous amount of time on my favorite 3 social sites, StumbleUpon, Sphinn and Mixx. Lately I'm mostly on Twitter though as it's
- most rewarding
- most interactive
- and most face to face
as far as it's possible on the Web. I've tried a huge number of other sites in the meantime and also developed a weird gusto for the rare (especially Browzmi) but
I want to expand my social media scope. I want to refocus.
I feel that I can't achieve anything more on my main 3 sites mentioned above. All three are stagnating in one or another way. The annoyances are getting more frequent.
- StumbleUpon bans my friends for being bloggers and takes away basic functionality while relaunching (you can't even change categories on your own submissions anymore after the system has added them in the wrong one)
- On Sphinn I get my comments deleted and some industry heavy weights are stalking me for not obeying their orders
- On Mixx, the Mixx staff votes down my submissions while many others have abandoned the site already out of frustration.
Using social media just out of habit is a bad thing for a SEO. There must also be some use in it. Otherwise it's like slavery. There still is some use at the above, my reputation building there is rock solid, but I want to know where the next sky is that is no limit for me.
So please tell me: Which site should I focus more on and why:
- LinkedIn?
- Facebook?
- FriendFeed?
- MySpace?
- YouTube?
Any other idea? I'd like to see a business friendly atmosphere, a team pleased with social media mavens and prominent bloggers taking part and some vibrant community.
Well I use linkedIn for professional reasons, to network with other industry pro’s. Even though I have an avid dislike for Facebook – selling members details and stuff and the rest well the rest are great if you are into video and music etc.
So for my money I guess I would advise you to try LinkedIn, the best for making a profitable (not only financially by making professional contacts but also offering professional advice which later pays with the odd job)network and not just a social one.
Thanks for the feedback Nico, I’m on LinkedIn for a while now but mostly passively. I noticed that quite a few people are very active over there recently.
My profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/onreact
I also used facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook mostly to connect to old friends and LinkedIn for professional reasons. I’m also playing passive mode in LinkedIn, I’m only connected to those that I have spoken at a personal level or I do business with. Sorry about what happens to you on the other Social Media sites.
Best Regards.
I’m a little confused what you are looking for – you can definitely use facebook to create community – you can post items, create groups, link to blogs but there is a lot of “fluff” on it as well. Direct SEO benefits are minimal since links are no-followed but you can create some direct traffic based on what you post – kind of like driving traffic from twitter. I’m on linked-in as well but haven’t found a use for it really beyond as kind of online business card.
I think you should use Friendfeed. It is very useful especially for bloggers. Becuase Friendfeed users mostly are bloggers.
Tad,
you’re a wise guy.
Different platforms, different needs, different outcomes.
I get hard traffic from Stumble Upon,
I get targeted traffic from Twitter and after get deleted couple of times on sphinn for doing first page i don’t give a f*** for them anymore.
Linkedin has been fantastic for consultancy gigs (take a look on my last post on Marketingeasy.net).
Cheers
Lucio
Hey Federico, thanks for the feedback. It’s not as bad on those sites I get along quite all right but it’s just boring, there’s no progress.
Hey Carolyn: Thank you. I really don’t know myself where I’m heading. I would have never imagined to be on Twitter before actually doing it that’s why this post is quite an open question. The 5 suggestions are just there to make it easier. In case you have a better idea tell me.
Thanks Ahmet: I’m on FF from time to time already. It’s difficult not to get overwhelmed there though.
lucio: They deleted you on Sphinn? Such a shame. I didn’t know. That sucks. Thanks for the feedback.
Hi,
linkedin is nice but it’s also very broad. Nevertheless you could find there readers from all over the world and it could be targeted readers because there’s lot of people who are related in some way to SEO, e-marketing (social media).
If you’re looking for targeted readers maybe you should try xing.com? As far as I know it’s full of IT professionals etc.
cheers,
Aleksander
Thanks Aleksander: I’m on Xing already due to living in Germany (it’s a German service) but it’s mostly a local business platform IMHO.
Also I hate Xing for destroying a great Austrian magazine called Xing before they adopted the name.
LinkedIn is good for professional networking but the groups functionality leaves me cold.
Facebook is a UI nightmare and has jumped the shark as far as I can tell.
MySpace … I gUeSs If YoU wAnT tO tAlK lIkE tHiS.
YouTube is good since Video is the future but I’d ignore the LCD comments.
FriendFeed is the best new hope. It does what Twitter wants to do – encourage real conversation. It can be a bit overwhelming at first and it’s not as ego driven as Twitter, but if you invest in FriendFeed you will get an amazing amount back in return.
At the end of the day FriendFeed is a data flow like Stephenson and Gibson imagined. It’s up to you to harness it through the right subscriptions and filters and turn data into information.
Find me there at: http://friendfeed.com/ajkohn
Friendfeed looks promising, Ed dale from the 30day Challenge is really high on this social media. But for me facebook works fine.
Social media sites are used by us aswell. I can imagine that we will be putting even more focus on them in the future as time goes by.