Social Media, The Good Old Days

That title is a bit of an oxymoron. Social Media isn’t really all that old when you realize that AOL and CompuServe started in the 80’s.

But in 2002 and 2003, when the social media platform types we know today started appearing, it all was a little bit simpler. You were on there to chat with people you knew or see what they were doing.

Now, with many new social sites appearing all the time, everything is quite a bit more involved. Sure, there are still sites where you can go just to chat with friends and family. But now these sites, in one way or the other, have made room for businesses. From big to small, there generally is a specific page, group, community or ad that businesses will be seen on in the sites. And these days the sites themselves have several changes every week if not more.

So what is my point? My point is, just as social media started out simply (like so many things) so did content. A good percentage of what you would read was basic yet informative material from mostly experts.

You could search for and easily find good content a few years ago. But today, all content is not equal. When I’m aggregating content, I have to read hundreds of articles a week to make sure it has basic principles and doesn’t come off as too derogative or sounds unprofessional, etc. I skip over more than I use on any good day.

There is so much content on the internet now that I spend 70-80 percent of my time going through it. Keep in mind I have content coming in through feeds, social media and alerts. But keywords only get you so far. The feeds and alerts still tend to bring in unusable content. Everyone writes content now, so you never know what you are going to open.

It used to be much simpler and more time efficient to find content and post it. Now, much more time is spent finding that additional content to post, and when you find and use good content it brings engagement (which I love). I don’t think many realize the time it takes to find good content and the time it takes to re-purpose their own good content.

You really need to find and use other experts’ content, as you can’t constantly be pushing people to your own website. You need to show that you have the same processes, products or programs as other well-known experts; that you too know what you are doing. And, people like people that share.

According to *Pew Research, “Multi-platform use is on the rise: 52% of online adults now use two or more social media sites, a significant increase from 2013, when it stood at 42% of internet users.”

Every platform tends to have its own style / flavor. So you need different content for different sites as all content is not appropriate for all sites. This adds to more searching for more fresh material to share. I know of companies that actually have an entire department of content curators.

How you go about finding content to share and how long it takes you to find just the right information? Do you use a reader or a system to find that content?  Let me know in the comments.

*http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/