Is Reciprocity a religion in Social Media?

Just had this strange question put up by one of my dear follower that made me think for a couple of minutes. Is it true that reciprocity is social media at work? Like any social media strategy, we had these auto DM’s sent to our new followers to say thanks and introduce our business. The only purpose being the opportunity to gain a new customer for our product and spread the word at the same time. I just received a reply from one of our very dear follower committing to join our website if we do the same for his product.

I understand if someone follows us, we follow back just to abide with #TEAMFOLLOWBACK culture. But, this request to join his product confused me a little. Do we follow back everything that comes our way and join every single free website to gain that one extra follower? Many will say yes, given there is still an opportunity to gain some exposure for your business.

In my opinion, this is incorrect. I personally believe the # TEAMFOLLOWBACK culture should be limited to social media tools and should not be taken to the product itself. I will not create an account with my brand name on any website that is not putting any value to my brand. Secondly, what is the point of creating a reference point for our customers that we are not able to use and maintain?

Yes, it is very subjective topic to comment on, as there are twenty reasons for both doing and not doing so. But, it is not just a website that we are joining. We are actually risking our brand value getting diluted just to please some followers. I would rather not join the website and do away with some amount of followers to avoid being part of something that doesn’t make sense to my brand.

So folks, let’s not follow the follow back culture just for the sake of following. It has to have some sense of intelligence behind our decision. It’s the brand that we want to create and we can only prevail where we are needed

Baran Khan – Founder/CEO
@uGoBigg

Keep The Humor Tap On

Social media, as we all know is a slow process of building community and relationships. You get to build your reputation, create a community and style that people feel when they see your profile. This takes time, in fact a lot of time. Generally, people tend to give up even before making much progress just because the responses are slow and you get a feeling as if you’re talking to yourself.

So, what is it that could make users look at your posts and remember you and your brands name? I am sure there are 20 different things you could do. But to me, most important of all is the smile. If your posts make people smile, while they are busy and burdened with thousand priorities, nothing beats that. It’s not a big ask to click on a URL and like the page, but the more important part is to have them like it in a way that they remember why they liked it.

I recently shared our FB page URL uGoBigg in my feeds and my very dear friend chose to like it only because it made her smile. The time of being formal in requesting a like on your page is old school business now. You ought to have a personal touch in each post you make that gets people to feel that you are there when they read your posts. It is easy to ignore a post, but not a real person.

I have found that by you should have a lot of what you post on your wall or twitter feed wrapped in an element of humor. Just a small funny line could make someone’s day and award you with a loyal connection that results in a business relationship. Remember, it’s not important that people come to your page. What’s more important is to make sure that they remember your name when they leave. It’s not that people came to your page the first time with a problem. They came on your page, they left and now they should come back every time they have a problem you proposed a solution for.

So guys keep up the humor tap on, let people smile and make it a bigger one every time you interact.

Baran Khan – Founder/CEO
@uGoBigg

There Is No Half Social Media

By half, I’m referring to people who are not into social media completely but are still trying to make a presence with a couple of posts per day and occasional conversations with certain followers. It could be an owner of a product, who because of budget constraints try doing it in-house and therefore only happens once in a while.

This kind of social media presence is not only ineffective but also dangerous. Ineffective because the people don’t actually know who you are and would hardly notice your posts or your product as you barely exist in their life cycle. Dangerous because by getting into social media, you are actually exposing this huge channel of communication with the outer world where a small mistake could result in a nightmare. There is nothing more annoying for a customer than to not get a response when he tries reaching a company for whatever reason.

Social media is about engagement, or I would rather say constant engagement. It’s about building relationships and making sure that people remember your name, product or service whenever they are in the market.

I would recommend that you do social media only if you know it or are dedicated to doing it properly. Otherwise you need to outsource or even leave it alone. Additionally, if you want to do social media, make sure you have enough backing to support your decision like we do.

So when you use social media, treat it like it’s your wife. Dedicate yourself to it, because just like a wife, if she is pissed with you, there is no hiding.

Baran Khan – Founder/CEO
@uGoBigg

A Social Media Portal Can Bridge Huge Gaps

In today’s social media world, we are all connected to multiple platforms with multiple people. We all have numerous social media accounts, making it difficult for people to connect with us where THEY want to. When you add the fact that many are also using social media as a marketing tool to develop larger and more effective relationships, the challenges become even more daunting.

When considering these challenges, it can quickly lead to other issues. A social portal needs to encapsulate you as an individual, yet also provide the deeper information about your business, services as well as show you as a human that people can and want to connect with. There is a need to have one place for all of your connection points, favorite content, videos, pictures and people that will solve this.

For example, About.me let’s you have links to your various social media accounts, but does nothing to help others learn about YOU or more importantly what you DO. Now, you need to also take people to your website, StumbleUpon bookmarks and so on, in order to let them discover the solutions you provide. Are we providing a solution or making even more work for users and visitors to their about page??

We thought their had to be a better way. One URL that provides the combined profile, connection points and content, all in one place. It’s called GoBigg.

As more and more users (currently over 10,000) began using it, we started to notice something. More and more feedback from our users that they were seeing more traffic to their domains, more targeted connections in their social space and more sharing of their content. Since the GoBigg social media portal automatically generates a new indexed page for every bookmarked piece of content you add, naturally it extends the reach on search engines. Furthermore, it provides one place, one URL and one site to be a portal for you. Don’t believe me? Here’s a quote we received this week from Robert M. Caruso @fondalo ”In just a few weeks I am already noticing an increase in traffic to our sites and various content. Having one URL on my business card and signature has been an incredible help. Thank you!”

As social media marketing continues to develop, ensuring that your audience not only finds you, but learns about what you do is becoming more and more important. Having a social portal that easily delivers on that need has become imperative.

Baran Khan – Founder/CEO
@uGoBigg