Eric Jensen

When it comes to Social Media every­one is in the pub­lish­ing busi­ness. Blogs and Face­book Pages are forums for com­mu­nity build­ing. Occa­sional self-promotion is alright, but your fol­low­ers will not keep com­ing back unless you pro­vide fresh, valu­able con­tent that encour­ages con­ver­sa­tion. Think like a mag­a­zine… With social com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools you and your com­pany can develop an inter­ac­tive, engag­ing, online mag­a­zine that will attract fol­low­ers and strengthen your cred­i­bil­ity and brand. Sounds great, right? Before you jump in, think about what this means. If you don’t have a plan to main­tain your pres­ence daily (or at least sev­eral times a week), your fans will lose inter­est. Stay away from self-promotion… Look at your favorite mag­a­zines. You may see a few dis­crete appeals for sub­scrip­tions (and that card that always falls out on the floor), but what com­pels you to read them is the con­tent. The focus is on the reader, not the pub­li­ca­tion. Many bands use their Face­book Pages solely as a bill­board to announce upcom­ing gigs, post new songs, reviews, and gen­er­ally talk about them­selves. If I’m a fan of a com­pany or artist, I already know I like what they do. There is no rea­son to reg­u­larly return to their Face­book Page if it doesn’t offer any­thing new. Con­sis­tency breeds loy­alty… If The New Yorker skipped a cou­ple of issues or was sud­denly miss­ing columns they would lose read­ers fast. Face­book Pages and blogs require the same con­sis­tent com­mit­ment to pub­lish­ing con­tent. Reach the right audi­ence… A good mag­a­zine brings you unique, tar­geted content…