134: How to Decide if You Should Start on a New Social Network or Medium

How to Decide if a New Social Network or Medium is Right for You Today I’m going to help you decide if you should start on that new social network or that new medium like a podcast or a YouTube channel. As bloggers, we are constantly bombarded with choice as to how we can spend our time. There is an unlimited amount of things we could be doing to support our blogs, but not all of them are right for us. I am going to go through some areas where we can ask questions to determine where we really should focus our energy. Today, I received an email from a reader who was wondering if they should get on facebook live. It’s an emerging medium that many bloggers have been experimenting with. This is a very common email that I get. People are wondering if they should get on different social networks or take advantage of new mediums. In Today’s Episode Is It Right for My Audience, My Content and for Me? My Audience? Note: Listen to todays episode on iTunes here Is my audience there? Obvious example - LinkedIn is a great place if you’re wanting to reach a more business focused niche. (survey to find out) Not just where do they have accounts but also: where are they most active what are they using it for? (catching up with friends, research, sharing links etc) How long do they stay there? People’s intent and habits are important and will inform how you should use it but also if it’s right for you. For example - we noticed a lot of our readers use FB to share photos - so we started a FB group purely for photo sharing. If your readers are on a network more for personal reasons it could be a signal that it’s not a great place to sell. Rather - take a more conversational tone. If your readers are there to search for info - treating it as a Search Engine - then it might be a good place to be posting reviews, news, how to content. Are others in my niche using it? If so - how and with what results? If not - is there a reason (which might signal that it’s a place to avoid) or an opportunity? How much work does it take them? Do they use systems/automation? Are they around the clock or just certain hours? Are there certain techniques that they use that get results or that don’t? If you can ask someone that’s probably best - but you can learn a lot by observing what they do. Follow the biggest in your niche and see what they’re doing. What is working that you could emulate but what isn’t being done that you could try? Is the network/medium trending up or down? Is it a good time to position yourself for a mainstream audience. My Content? Does it suit my topic? eg in the photography space we need to engage in networks and mediums that are visual. Blogging, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, FB, G+ in its day, Twitter etc - but to this point I’ve avoided podcasting as it doesn’t seem as natural a fit (although there are successful photography ones that talk gear or video ones that do well that talk technique). Eg ProBlogger we’re talking more about concepts, ideas, techniques that don’t require visuals, so podcasting suits more for some - although there are some things that are easier to show with a screenflow video, a webinar etc. Does it suit the the style/voice of content I produce? Eg - I teach people - which lends itself to some networks and mediums better than others. I think it’s a good fit for podcasting. Eg - dPS is very visual so we’ve invested more time into Instagram. It also lends itself to longer form content as we produce a lot of tutorials which is why our blog is the main thing we do. Can I repurpose the content I create on the new network/medium in some way to make the investment of time I put into it doubly valuable? Eg - video you create on FB Live could end up on Youtube or you could pull the audio from it to put into your podcast or you could transcribe it a...