It’s taken me a while to finally realize that “the conversation” isn’t on my blog.
In fact, unless you’re like Penelope Trunk (an awesome, sharp writer with big-time exposure) and blog about going to your first day of marriage counseling (or even something remotely controversial), there’s a chance the conversation isn’t on your blog either.
Then today, maybe, it hit me …
I get more comments on my Facebook and Twitter status than this blog (or any of my blogs).
Yes, maybe I’m not doing something right.
Yes, I don’t like to stir up trouble and yes, I hate conflict and controversy (I’d prefer to teach, build relationships through my blog – it’s an extensive and expression of me and the other stuff’s not me).
Yes, I have a lot of Facebook friends (almost 800), and Twitter followers (around 2k) … a lot more than people coming to this blog.
And yes yes yes, I’m still a HUGE fan of blogging.
But the conversation isn’t here, and probably won’t ever be.
The conversation is there … not here.
(And you know what? I’m OK with that.)
That means, increasingly, I’ve been spending more and more time on my social media strategies on Twitter and Facebook.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far … and still refining …
- Facebook is for friends and reconnecting – I’m still not comfortable with “friending” someone, which connects them to other friends (I don’t want someone thinking a stranger is OK because somehow they are connected to me)
- Twitter is for business, marketing and reflection – for me, Twitter is often a rough draft of my thoughts, an awesome tool for customer service and for relationship building
- My blog is still my cornerstone marketing tool - it’s still my 24/7 ever-changing resume, my primary marketing tool (on- or offline), I own the domain name real estate (I’m not leasing land owned by FB or Twitter), and so far, it’s still the best, most affordable way under the sun to get found by the search engines (when I get outranked by social media for my own domain name I might change my tune – but that’s one of their greatest opportunities actually)
What about you? What have you learned?
Wait … don’t comment here, give it a Tweet instead.
The “conversation” may not be here, but there’s value here. That’s why you’re in my reader. And if I take anything you mention here elsewhere, the conversation lives on and it started right here. I am a big twitter fan and I enjoy Facebook as well, but I am not going to abandon my blog, and I hope that thoughtful bloggers keep at it. There is still a lot to be said about quality content, and content marketing hasn’t begun to reach its peak so I’m going to stick with creating content on my blog and take my conversation with me to those other platforms.
Angela Connor | @communitygirl
Angela, right on – excellent, sharp feedback!
Maybe I need to refine this …. content is more in-depth things, like this blog post (I wouldn’t blog on Facebook, for example, unless I have an overwhelming reason to do so).
Keep blogging! I haven’t given up either.
That’s what I wanted to hear. You keep posting, I’ll keep reading. Let’s keep a dialog going about this. I see more and more people spending all of their time elsewhere and some of my favorites are spending way too much time on Friendfeed, IMHO. I hope they don’t lose me. I’m not chasing anyone around on Friendfeed all day, even if I do like the service.