The year was 2005, and I was a student at T.A. Marryshow Community College. It was close to the end of the semester, and I was checking one of my boys at the computer lab. I remember seeing a girl sitting on one of the computers, she was on this website and had her picture on it and was posting information about herself. In my mind I thought, why the hell would she willingly post information about herself on the internet like that, that’s stupid.
I remember asking my boy, yow whats good with homegirl, what is she doing, he was like, she is on some kind of website called Facebook. You can set up profiles and post information about yourself on there. I was like, man that’s a whole load of BS. I’m never going to be on that crap. Today I am a social media strategist, and Facebook is my weapon of choice.
How did that happen, let’s just say I went to Mexico and got caught up in the everyone is on there so maybe I should be to fiasco. I remember posting a bunch of random stuff on my Facebook wall. One time I posted that my room smelled like a vagina and there was no vagina in there. Let’s just say I was very inappropriate.
Now fast forward a couple of years later, I show brands how to use social media to capture people attention and drive massive action through storytelling. But while doing that, one of the things that bugs me is when people decide to use social media for distribution. I know some of you maybe have a WTF look on your face now but let me explain.
Just like Television or print media, Social Media is a communication channel, not a distribution channel.
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make on social media is thinking they can create a piece of content ignoring the nuances of the different social media platforms and then distribute it through social media. Ok, you can do that because many of you have been doing it, but here’s a better way.
Use social media as a communication channel and create content specifically for social. Don’t shoot a video and then decide to post it on Facebook. You need to figure out what kind of videos perform best on Facebook and create your video accordingly. Don’t just create a piece of visual and then post it on Instagram or Twitter, no. Figure out what kind of visuals performs best on these platforms and create yours accordingly. That’s the difference between using social media for distribution vs. as a communication channel.
Let that sink in for a minute and them holla at me in the comments, let me know what you think.