Silence is golden? Not on social networks…

This weekend I had a strange experience. One of the Channel Island’s most prolific tweeters stopped me at a mutual friend’s wedding to tell me I’d been too quiet on twitter of late and that he was worried something was afoot with me that he didn’t know about.

Naturally this led me to review a view things, firstly, had I gone a bit awol from my social networks? (answer, probably a little bit) And, secondly, has twitter become so second nature (particularly in the media industry) that a bit of radio silence can be construed with such great significance?

To address the first issue, without going into great detail, my twitter feed has been a little quiet of late. A reminder that I should practise what I preach and instead of spending all my time talking about other people’s social media activity I should look after my own a bit more, children of cobblers and all that…

However the second part of this observation is what is more interesting to me. When we talk to our clients about social media, a key phrase that comes up is momentum. Social media is often a slow build; regular communications over a long period of time are the best way to build a genuinely meaningful community. Like any PR campaign that momentum needs to be kept up. It’s like riding a bike up a hill. You don’t need to sprint, but if you stop pedalling, you’ll slow down, stop and then start rolling backwards – losing your followers.

It’s also harder to start again then it is to keep on going.

Momentum is critical to social media campaigns, and any plan of activity needs to have a sustained and managed approach if it is going to succeed.

Posted by Chris.