Twitter....Facebook.....What the !!!!

I cannot tell you how many people have made the following statement to me in the last 3 months...

" I don't get (Twitter, Facebook)!"

It's a pretty universal feeling. I tried to step back and think of the best way to sort of encapsulate what these SM forums are and how they are different from one another.  I have settled on this....

Facebook is the equivalent of being invited into someone's livingroom and having a seat on their couch.  Twitter is the equivalent to booking a hall and offering free admission to anyone who's interested in hearing what you have to say.

So what do I mean?  Well let's look at them separately.

Facebook - If you are invited to a friends house to hang out and offered a seat on their couch...how likely would you be to launch immediately into a sales pitch about your DJ business?  Would you be more likely to ask them how they were and what was going on with them or would you dominate the conversation with info on what was happening in your world?  Most likely it would be a more natural conversation.  A back and forth with each of you showing interest in what the other had to say.  That's Facebook in a very simplified way.  We "friend" people on Facebook.  Our interactions there should be of a more friendly nature.  When you are interacting with potential clients you want to act like you're at a friends house chatting.  Showing genuine interest in what they are saying and what's going on in their world.  Commenting when appropriate on there status updates (wedding and non wedding alike) without acting like a stalker.  When (and if) the conversation comes naturally around to weddings offer your expertise but refrain from selling yourself.  After all if they know you are a DJ and they have need of one they'll be likely to inquire of themselves.  Once they open the discussion then fire up your sales pitch but only after you're invited to.

A couple caveats - Doesn't your Mom, your best friend, and your wife already think you're the Greatest DJ in the world?  Your past customers already benefited from your awesome specials and the current clients are anticipating your service but have paid their deposit and aren't concerned that "DATES ARE FILLING UP FAST!"  These are more than likely the people on your friends list (don't get me started on what value following every DJ in America does for any of us)  So FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE STOP POSTING THIS INFORMATION ON FACEBOOK!  How many times can we read about "Another GREAT event, for another GREAT couple, at another GREAT venue...blah...blah...blah" PUKE!  Instead what made THIS reception unique?  What happened that made this event unlike any other?  What was interesting?  I hate to say it but several of my fellow well respected DJ colleagues are hidden in my news feed for essentially spamming my wall with this type of repetitive posting.  Again consider WHO you are making these statements to. Give em something worth reading!

Twitter - You have information about what makes your business the most unique, best value, most exciting WHATEVER DJ service in your area or perhaps in the whole wide world!  Twitter is a great place to demonstrate this knowledge and these attributes...but hold on!   Before you go racing off to Tweet about your current "promotion" or "latest gear purchase" consider who's listening.  Who are your followers?  What information will they find interesting and how can you communicate it to them in a way that will keep them interested and MOST IMPORTANTLY will encourage them to share that information with their followers!  This is the goal!  RT (ReTweeting) is a MAJOR goal on Twitter.  Getting people with followers different from your own to repeat what you have said to their followers is a powerful way to get the attention of folks you might not otherwise reach.  So twitter is the Hall you book and then you open the doors and invite people in to hear what you have to say.  People will come in at first with their own agendas.  They want YOU to listen to them.  They are looking for you to RT what they have posted.  If you follow other DJ's don't expect to close ANY sales using Twitter.  They aren't going to help you out.  If however you follow all the banquet managers, venues (yes venues have their own Twitter accounts), planners, photographers, florists, cake designers, etc in your area and you find ways to communicate to them useful information you will raise your profile in their consideration.  If you take the opportunity to figure out who in that group is offering great information and RT that info to your followers you will become even more influential to those folks.

A couple caveats....don't RT any blog posts that you didn't read!  The worst thing is to see a DJ RT something from a planner and then to read the article where the planner disses DJ's.  Your reputation is at stake protect it and only promote the vendors that prove their quality.
Don't simply Tweet your own self serving information over and over.  You will find yourself talking to no one.  Instead post interesting articles you read on-line or genuine honest opinions about local wedding resources.  If you blog Tweet your postings, and do it 3 to 4 times in a day.  People access Twitter at different times so if you only post at 10am and someone doesnt sign on till 7pm they aren't likely to scroll back to see that tweet.  Instead try using one of the SM dashboards like HootSuite, Tweetdeck, or Seesmic to schedule the posts to appear at 7:30 am, 12 Noon, 7:30pm and 11pm (these are generally high traffic times on Twitter.  Those who see the posts multiple times will simply ignore them.  They are the most engaged and they will be used to this.

A word about Friends/Followers - This isn't a contest or a race to the most.  I asked this question on Facebook the other day... "Once EVERY person on Facebook has "liked" your fan page...then what?"  Seriously...what is the point of having 1,000,000 friends or followers if none of them are paying attention.  We have all "liked" things on Facebook for little reason other than that it was soooooo easy to do.  Tell me though...do you return to all those pages and participate on them?  Do you stay engaged in the conversation swirling around the funny video on your cousins page or did you watch, hit the like button and move on?  Be honest.  If you are honest you'll soon realize that a "like" is worthless by itself.  A like that is accompanied by engagement...ahhh now that's something else.  On Twitter it's even worse.  I know of a DJ who just celebrated his 100k followers on Twitter.  A close examination of his follower list and you can see he is being followed by about 95,000 twitter bots!!!  Those aren't people just programs...he is talking to software!  His Klout score (one of the metrics used to determine influence on the web) is low meaning he's not a "force to be reckoned with...he's just a dude who collects followers.  If that's what you want I can show you how to get there but you'll be wasting your time 100% guaranteed.

The goal here with all SM is to convert the influence and interactions to $$$ yes?  Then make sure there's ALWAYS some SOCIAL in your Social Media activity!