Monday, March 14, 2011

7 2 1 rule

Including Social Media in your web presence strategy is a common practice these days. Even email marketers include cute buttons that allow a reader to easily Like you on Facebook, Follow you on Twitter or Disqus your message online. But once you eventually convince someone to actually follow or like you via their Web 2.0 profile, how do you keep that user's attention to convey your message or business mission statement, or whatever else your Social Media inner child desires to share. Besides that, how would you continue that newly established relationship, keep that new friend from Facebook engaged?
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) experts keep pounding into us that more, new and targeted "content, content, content" is the driving force for online engagement. SEO gurus point out tactical technicalities that increase your chances of making your web presence more attractive via search engines. Other experts may pull an answer to that concern in their own direction as well.
I recently participated in a webinar where yet another expert, mentioned that particular topic, but his feedback was something new. As refreshing as it was, it was rather simple - for an EXPERT talking to a large group of webinar participants - he said that in order to keep your followers attention, interest and engagement, you have to be interesting.
"Easy for interesting people to say" one might think.
That Social Media and Open Enterprise expect, Paul Gillin continued to add that when he meant what this 7-2-1 rule, where according to his company's research and observations, the most successful Twitter profiles are the ones that employ that rule. Per each 10 posts, 7 are totally not related to you or your business - they may in fact actually mention interesting competitors. The next 2 tweets should get closer to you or your line of business, listing events or web references mentioning you indirectly. The last 1 tweet should be your text about you - because your followers should believe that you believe in yourself and/or your business. If that rule works for Twitter, other Social Media platforms may be equally successful if the same 7-2-1 rule is followed.