Repetition, repetition, repetition (Confessions of a self-promoting spam merchant)
By Milo | November 11, 2008
Image: Steve PowersIf you’re a member of more than one social network, how do you avoid repeating yourself? What if you have some of the same people following you on say, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Last.FM, myspace? You may think, like me, that you need all those accounts for a reason – because you have different friends or followers on each and they all offer something unique (e.g. myspace is still unfortunately pretty necessary if you are a musician).
Do you really want to bore your most loyal audience with the same message time and time again? For example, when I’ve done a podcast, some people will have been notified of this about five times – which is bound to piss them off and actually put them off hearing it which is the opposite of the desired effect.
I have this website with multiple blogs on it, organised by specific categories, then I have my Tumblr blog which is more like an online scrapbook but I’m aware that there are maybe certain people who read one but not the other and I feel compelled to post what I’ve been up to e.g. reviews I’ve written or podcasts I’ve recorded etc on both.
Perhaps this is only a temporary thing, until you’re secure in the knowledge that people are aware of all of your different outlets, and keep up to date with them. For example, if I knew everybody who was interested was already subscribed to the RSS feed on my blog, then I wouldn’t need to send a link to my latest posts via twitter or post them on tumblr. Perhaps by doing so, I am alienating more people than I’m attracting?
Tumblr I like mostly because it’s international – having followers in the US and elsewhere is something that would be harder to achieve with this random blog I feel. But also the way the Tumblr dashboard is means their attention on my blog is merely casual – if something catches their eye, like a good photo or quote, they may reblog it but otherwise they may not be particularly interested in my ramblings. It’s not really a medium that works for lengthy posts such as this.
Would the small number of followers I have really miss me if I deleted my account in a sudden fit of decisive action? I’m not going to do that – just yet – but I am going to cut down on the amount of cross-promotion I’m doing. I don’t want my online reputation to be that of a self-promoting spam merchant.
Related reading: How Many Social Media Platforms? (newmusicstrategies via Roamin)
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