We are in a technology bubble that’s about to bust and leave peoples’ time wasted like splattered paint on the floor. The moment that the mainstream realizes you don’t need to be involved in 10, 20, 30 (100?) social media platforms will be the moment the bubble will burst… It’s coming soon and hopefully this post will help speed up the process.

First there was Twitter … then there was other services kind of like Twitter. Your audience was already on Twitter but you decided to try Jaiku, Brightkite, Pownce, Plurk, Kwippy and Friend Feed too. Understandably so, we all have the need to see which services are most useful to us… No problem.

The problem comes in when you try to manage a community on each of these networks. The stroke of your paintbrush gets spread too thin and you begin to realize the whole point of all of this was to establish and develop relationships that lead to trust and then … “mind share” that leads to traffic, action, voting, sales, rankings, whatever.

That’s right, the whole purpose of social media is to develop relationships and to save and share content with people. There is no secret trick to social media… There is no magic bullet… No manner of automation will make a dent in this beast (you haven’t fallen for any lies have you) … It’s all about relationships… PERIOD!

With that said, do you really need to have a presence in every new technology that comes out?

I am sure you have seen profiles of people that have badges from every network you can think of like a well decorated General they brandish their badges with honor hoping to impress people with their “participation”. Are they really participating that much? Or does it just look cool?

If 80% of the micro-blog market already uses Twitter, do you need to network with those same people on Jaiku or Plurk? … NOPE! … It’s not efficient and it widens your brush stroke, thinning out the paint. If you can reach StephenColbert on Twitter then why do you need to reach him on Plurk too?

Some will argue that they need that other 20% of the micro-blog market so they build profiles on 9 different micro-blog sites under the illusion that they can build meaningful communities while being spread so thin at the same time. Reach is not about how many friends or followers you have, it is about how many “meaningful” relationships you can build and how many people are willing to give you a piece of their mind share.

I don’t care if you have 14,000 followers on Twitter, if you count the number of people that will give you their mind share or extend your reach then the number is probably more like 140. Social media is the greatest illusion creator of 2008. For some reason many people think this is a new phenomenon, a new egg that needs to be cracked … NOPE! … It is still all about two way communication and trust building in order to gain the mind share of your target audience… The same as its been for over a decade!

The bubble will burst the moment the mainstream reaches this understanding. Suddenly participation in the less popular networks will tank and die… Only the strongest will survive. Strength will be determined by market share…

Silly rabbit tricks are for fools … Don’t trick yourself into thinking you need to participate everywhere when most of your target audience is in a single place. Find the single place where most of your audience participates and then FOCUS on that single network and do it exceedingly well.

In reality, you only need to be active on very few social networks in order to extend your reach exponentially. If you create content that is Educational, Enlightening or Entertaining and share it with a single group of loyal friends and followers, gain their trust through quality, then THEY will extend your reach into other networks for you. They will extend your messages into all the places you thought you needed to be… This is the way social media was designed… If you are bookmarking and digging your own stuff then you need to do a 180 on your thinking about what social media is … the CROWD is supposed to do that stuff for you… silly rabbit.

If you are not focusing on relationships in social media (you link builder you) then all your effort and all your time will be sucked right into the (ticking time bomb) technology bubble, leaving your time wasted as collateral damage when it busts.

Focus on relationships and jump off of the technology train because it is about to derail and you don’t need to be on it. Lynn Terry has been telling us where the true value of social media lies… Is this where your brain is at? … It needs to be.

Are you a silly rabbit or have you reached the epiphany?

Which networks do you think will survive the big bust?

This has been part 5 of a multi-part series on using social media effectively to build a “real” business online. Here are the previous 4 posts that have led to this one.

  1. Is there any return on investment in social media?
  2. Why does ROI in social media suck?
  3. Why Traffic from social networks does not convert
  4. I spotted Bigfoot on your website doing social media

Related information:
Trimming your Social Media Accounts - RichardKannegieser.com

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