Does Your Social Media Community Know that You're Still Alive?

The tongue in cheek title to this article aside, this is a topic that I can’t seem to blog enough about!
In fact, my earlier article where I asked if your LinkedIn profile is your obituary is one of my more popular posts.
Yet, many people still go on line, build reasonably sized communities, and then apparently forget all about them.
Then they’ll call me up and say their social media is doing nothing for them!
Let’s discuss for a while!
The problem is that many have static profiles on social media and their associated resources such as blogs and websites.
I see LinkedIn profiles that haven’t been updated in ages.
My favorites are the ones with profile pictures from over twenty years ago.
The sad irony is that there are many LinkedIn profiles whose owners are dead (Yes, this isn’t a metaphor, I mean the kind of dead where you’re not breathing anymore.) and if you didn’t know better you couldn’t tell them apart from people who are still alive!
Then there are the Twitter accounts with a reasonable number of followers that someone went to the trouble of building and there hasn’t been any activity in years.
Websites will have the same content for years, or, blogs with just one post or they stopped posting back when Bush was President.
Some of these folks paid good money to set these assets up too!
Why does this happen?
I’ve talked to a few of the people who have fallen into this trap. (Not the dead ones, I’ll give them a mulligan.)
The most common refrain is time constraints, just not enough hours in the day to get everything done.
The one that really gets me is when they claim that they have nothing to say.
(Really? I only let the dead ones get away with that excuse.)
Or, worst of all, they don’t think they need to do it.
They treat their social media like people used to treat advertising in the Yellow Pages back in the day.
Whatever their excuse is, this is a major flaw in the marketing and social media programs for many businesses.
Why should you care if people know if you’re still alive?
First off, all kidding aside, you’ll never be top of mind for business if people either don’t or don’t care whether your dead or alive.
You want potential and former clients to know what you’re thinking, what you’re doing, and what your latest content is.
Today, active engagement, both participation and content, is expected by everyone.
If you don’t do then you don’t exist.
It’s that simple, folks!
People want to engage with you and they want the same back from you.
Without any social media activity then you’ll fall into the blackhole of search engine results never to be seen again.
Your competitors are doing it!
Trust me they are, just Google them and see what they’re up to.
You’ll be surprised!
Showing signs of life on social media is not difficult.
Start small, be original, and be consistent!
You’ll be surprised at what’ll happen next!
That’s it for now!
Please check-out my 8 step approach for developing a social media program to get some more ideas on how to use social media.
Also, never forget to reach out to either ask questions or to ask for help from someone like myself!
In the meantime, thank you for following and reading my blog!
I look forward to any and all comments that you may have. I will reply to any comments made to this blog post as promptly as I can.