The blog (which you can read by clicking here if you missed it first time round) suggested that if you use it correctly as a support tool, syndication can be useful in effectively streamlining your efforts.

It did however make the case that using syndication as a shortcut or as an alternative to building dialogue would lessen and not increase the fruits of your social media labours.

Another point we wanted to cover off today is in relation to syndicating tweets on to social networks that are clearly destined for Twitter.

Tweets are by definition tweets.  They will often be written in a style constrained by the 140-character limit or in a tone of voice that is appropriate for the network and your followers.  Compare this to, for example LinkedIn; a network much more professional in nature and where there is no character limit on posts (this is not us condoning the writing of laboriously long LinkedIn updates!).

LinkedIn also has no use of hashtags, which are almost symbolic of Twitter and the tweets made on that platform.

When you see a tweet you will know it is a tweet.

We therefore go back to the point we made in our blog post ‘is syndication a friend or foe of social media’ and examine whether the time you are saving by syndicating content is outweighed by the loss in benefit of the action you are taking.

To post separately on to LinkedIn does take more time, all-be-it quite a small amount of time.  However, if you want to get a message across how much more impact will it give you if you have crafted it for the appropriate audience?

Can you expect something that you have tweeted and syndicated to LinkedIn to have the same impact as writing an update specifically for your business connections?

We think the answer here more often than not would be a no.

The time saved by syndicating from your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account is outweighed by the loss in impact.

It will appear as a tweet that has found its way on to LinkedIn.

This is why we suggest that you take the time to write separate LinkedIn updates rather than syndicating tweets across.  You will be spending a bit more time, but in tern you will also be gaining more from it.

For more information on how we can help your social media presence through training, management or support please do give us a call or email us at hello@mihidigital.co.uk

The post Are Twitter and LinkedIn natural partners? appeared first on MiHiDigital.

With this comes an element of time.  If you wanted to go for a drink with someone in real life you’d need to invest the time in going to the pub, sitting down and having a chat.  The same also applies to social media; if you want to truly interact with people you have to invest the time in building dialogue through whatever platform you are using.

This is where the syndication comes in.  Platforms like Hootsuite will allow you to schedule tweets or ping them to other networks such as LinkedIn or Facebook.  The obvious positive of doing this is to free the time you spend each day on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on.  You can schedule you tweets, select which networks they are going to and sit back while you focus on other things.

Now the downside…

Many people use this as a replacement and not a supportive tool to their social media activity.  You’ll probably have them too, people that have the same sales tweet going out repeatedly day after day.  Whilst social media should provide you with additional avenues from which to promote your products and services you’ll be doing the potential benefits you can gain a disservice by using this methodology.

Lets draw an equivalent comparison to direct marketing.  This type of syndication would be akin to a direct mail campaign where you sent the same piece of marketing material to the same householders time and time again.  Would you expect to gain results from this? You might get one or two leads but by and large there will be a growing level of apathy or even irritation to your marketing methodology.

The same principles apply to social media.  It’s also worth bearing in mind that if you’ve scheduled all of your tweets in you won’t be reacting to, commenting on and showing an interest in others.

Ever been to a party or a dinner with someone who only wants to talk about themselves? How long were you willing to listen to that person.

We’ve touched on reacting to tweets above and it’s also vital you are able to respond to questions, queries and comments that arise from your own posts.  Are you able to do this as efficiently if they’re scheduled in?  Do you even know when they are going out? Perhaps or probably not.

At MiHi Digital a key focus of our social media work is always to ensure that people are making the most of their time and the value they gain from that time is being maximised.

Syndication can add value when you are using it to support activity.  It is however, not a substitute to time.

For more information on how we can help you gain more from the time you spend on social media please give us a call or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk

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