• Relationships - not only is building relationships my favorite thing about it, it’s the most important thing.  If you’re primary concern is to determine ROI when developing your social media strategy, you might want to rethink joining the conversation at all.  Yes, there are trackable analytics, but social media is more about the customer having a voice than it is about your bottom line.  I love that many of the relationships I have experienced though our LifeWay Twitter account are now people I keep in contact with personally.
• Transparency – This idea has been around since AOL offered personal profiles to all of their users.  People and corporations are being more open and honest with people about who they really are.  And while some people might be dishonest to get attention, most people can see right through it.  When Threadless accidentally deleted five years worth of user blog posts (before they had dev servers – only one year ago, mind you), they were honest with their community about it.  Surprisingly, there was little negative feedback.  Not only did transparency help their reputation, but one of the people in the community wrote a script to recover all of the lost data.
• Feedback – Because the nature of social media is in fact social, people love to give input.  I’ve used feedback from people not only personally but in my work at LifeWay as well.  Twitter provides the quickest and easiest outlet to poll people, though this can be done effectively on blogs as well.
• Crowdsourcing – This falls in line with feedback, but is actually different.  While feedback gives you a response to your content, crowdsourcing is used to create content.  What kind of content?  Well, just about any kind.  From 99designs, where users submit designs to win prizes, to Get Satisfaction, where customer service is provided by consumers, it can be used for just about anything.  Crowdsourcing is a hot-button issue for a lot of people because it threatens their industry.  No longer does a company have to pay top dollar for services, because people are willing to work for just about anything.  I love crowdsourcing because it  shows the power of community – however, my support for it depends on why it is being used.
• News – It’s been said before – but social media is by far one of the quickest ways to get news.  I love that while I’m talking to people, and doing something I enjoy, and I can also hear about news from around the world.

What are your favorite things?

Never forget that your content is up against literally everything else on the internet. What does this mean for you? You must update your accounts frequently. Set aside a time (or two or three) each week to upload to videos and pictures. If you’re using social networks, update your status a few times a day so people will know that you are active.

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