Less is More

‘On the one hand, I’d be crazy NOT to invest in a social media strategy.  It clearly matters. On the other hand, I’d be crazy to invest a LOT in a social media strategy. It is clearly matters a lot less than several other business priorities I have. So it’s all about optimizing.  If I’m only going spend, say, 1 hour a week on my social media strategy, I need it to be a well spent hour.’

These were questions put to me by someone managing a website on top of clinical work:

• How many online communities can I meaningfully participate in with a strictly limited time budget?  Is it better to participate a little bit in 6 communities or twice as much in each of 3?

• What KIND of contributions/interactions are the most meaningful?  It’s very emotionally addictive to engage in debates, but is that really the best use of time?
  

• If my goal is to be seen to work on a reputation in a community, how is that best done?  ”Suck up” to people, favourably review their contributions, “like” a lot of stuff, promote a lot of other people?  Promote blog posts?  Be a great source of interesting links?  Tell people what I had for dinner?  There are many ways to participate, clearly not all equally serving the strategy!

• Which are the best communities to participate in?  What’s hot?  What’s most relevant to my work?  What’s the most likely to last?  Is it just a matter of picking the biggest?

• Should my social media strategy favour interactions with professionals or patients?  I have both markets roughly equally, but social media may have quite different relevance to those two markets.

In response I would say this

Doing a little well, is far more effective than doing a lot sporadically

• Start small
• Pick something you can manage – one site, one community, one goal
• Measure the difference to your site
• Be consistent (important, so start small)
• Be genuine – one good conversation, comment, or link is worth far more than trying to be everywhere at once