With 2020 being a year of change for most people, myself included, it is good to write a few notes down and share with everyone on where I personally think, don’t take my thoughts to the bank, just sharing, on how your online networks should be used for your own betterment.
As I go through this, I will be writing this from both a personal user as well as a business user of the select platforms Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, also please note there will be a selfless plug for Rig Lynx in there as well, of course, why resist.
None of this will guide you in any shape form or fashion to what is best for you or your products, this is only what I personally have experienced both from the personal perspective and the business perspective with each platform.
Personal Perspective: Since being deactivated more than once, I can honestly say that if you are going to use Facebook just for personal reasons, do not attempt to get outside of the box and use it for any other purpose. This means that using it for personal purposes means just that, communicate with friends, families and the occasional co-worker, photos, entertainment and basically whatever you would pick up the phone and have an actual personal conversation about between you and whoever you are interested in sharing this with. I am sure that no one out there has ever said “Did you see that on Facebook?”. Facebook wants you to be involved and share what is on their platform, that means material that is generated, created and built on Facebook.
Business Perspective: If you own a business that sales a product or service, it is good to have a Facebook page, reason being it is the biggest social media network in the world and it is free real estate to claim. But remember the golden rule here, “If you have a post go viral, make sure that you own every single piece of media in that post,” this means music, photos, text is your own, everything. You will get shut down, as per recent results it only takes 1-2 negative content reports per 1,000 impressions to have your account flagged for abuse. Big companies and personalities on Facebook can basically share want they want, when they want, where you on the other hand cannot, this is because the following and network users of the platform will stop coming if they do not see media from their biggest stars or companies where you are a little fish and don’t measure up enough to hurt Facebook, so they can axe you with a keystroke and turn back around to their warm latte. Largest tip here is, if you have a Facebook Business page, make sure to have another administrator added to it, that can mean life or death of your very successful page, it’s a must. Trust me here…
Personal Perspective: I find that sharing things from a personal perspective on LinkedIn will be engaged by people that are closest to you such as friends, family, co-workers etc. They engage with you much the same way as they would on Facebook except, they take a second thought about how they engage because hey “Your boss may be watching right?” You do not get the viral engagement on LinkedIn sharing personal perspectives on subjects, the only personal perspective that will gain engagement is that of a heartwarming or of a servitude type of nature. Why is it like this? Because you will be frowned upon if you engaged with something that is not in line with the values of the people that look up to you, or the values of the company that you work for, guess what? You will be reprimanded at your company or receive yucky inbox messages from people that disagree on your post instead of what should be done and take that 3 seconds and scroll by.
Business Perspective: Much the same as Facebook, except here it is the “largest” B2B network in the networking world. Here you can connect with people and follow companies that are relevant or interesting. Open networkers connect with everyone mostly, these open networkers are what drives the 2nd, 3rd degree connections etc. If it was not for open networkers, we would not be able to reach outside of our service sectors, interests or thoughts so these connections bridge that gap. I know it’s hard to get your head wrapped around why would I consider connecting to someone that sells customers for dogs if I am only on LinkedIn to connect with people or businesses that can benefit from what I do, which is petroleum from my side but that open networker does serve a healthy purpose initially. I have been on LinkedIn for over 8 years, not as long as some but also much longer than others and the transition of LinkedIn’s inbox marketing techniques and the way they push people into your inbox through paid promotions seems the opposite of why you are actually on LinkedIn. If you are on LinkedIn for business purposes and to connect to people that are of value to you and your business, you will find this part of LinkedIn very annoying, so buckle up, it’s a pain. If you are like me and connect with just about everything under the sun, my wife hates it by the way, then it is easier to hit the delete and move on. I delete a lot out of my inbox each day without a second thought other than to ask myself, “Why am I paying 40 bucks a month to have LinkedIn push me people and advertising into my inbox that I don’t care to see?” It almost seems like they are cannibalizing their own paying members which is backwards from what it should be.
Personal Perspective: As humans we all like shiny things! Photos, videos and other media that looks good visually gets engagement. Postings photos of things throughout your day, powerful stories can lead into self-branding. It is a comparative to Gollum from the Lord of the Rings series, vocally “My Precious”, as he was attracted to the very “shiny ring”. The tip here is to use the filters, even if your photo is immaculate and posting quality sometimes the digital effect takes the edge off, even if you add a filter to lift the colors slightly will gain good engagement with your following.
Business Perspective: If you sell a physical product, this is the place for you. This means if you have a new product line, take hundreds of photos, pick through the ones that are the best and post them. Make sure to use the filters, same as I mentioned in the personal perspective section above as a slight change in color or light can get you engagement. If you do have an online store, then you can easily tag your products through the Facebook suite of tools and tie them back to get traffic directly to your website. What we use Instagram for is promoting mostly people and photos of things that we find relevant to what we do with Rig Lynx. We use it for positivity for the industry and the hard-working people in the industry. But as it is a Facebook owned product and platform the are many tools they have in their toolbox to get you traffic to your product line but remember, if you go viral as mentioned above, make sure you own everything that is in it, all of it, if not you will get dinged on a copyright or negative reports and it will either A) Be knocked back or limited viewing or B) Your account will get flagged for abuse, spam etc.. so, stay within the guidelines, don’t go to rogue unless you are ready to pay the price.
Personal Perspective: To be honest, you will not get a great personal perspective review here from me on Twitter. I do not like that people can get on and create multiple different adhoc, or parody accounts and use this to play the analytics and get more views, I find this distasteful as well as troubling. People can easily create buzz around a handle by having cells of these accounts engaging with their tweet and powering their verbiage up to a place where they previously wouldn’t have been able to go with a limited amount of following. Virality on Twitter is limited to the rich and famous for the most part and if you are lucky enough to be in the first 10 engagers of a tweet you may get a retweet, or a touch of fame equally shared from your star or political candidate of choice that day.
Business Perspective: We use it as a tool for updates, and relevant news, much like other companies use it for. Basically, a high-powered RSS feed and nothing else. Analytics for these are kind of basic, you can get traction but don’t expect to blow the ceiling off with an update on your new process or product unless you have a famous person promoting it, just how it is. Best to keep in mind what the network is actually used for, airing out public opinions on things that are relevant to that moment in time. It is not progressive; it is regressive in nature and will die off as soon as the next hot-tweet comes along. It is a great tool to let your clients get instant access to you, as it shows validity when engaging with your following publicly.
Rig Lynx
Personal Perspective: As the platform is young and changes from month to month, it is geared for people in the petroleum industry, but the engagement is limited. You won’t find stars or famous people here; you won’t find a world of controversy. Just people being people, sharing what they feel is on their mind regardless of what the content is, either business or personal, they can share it. It is a network of people in a niche industry, the content that is shared does not have to be relevant to what they do or what industry they work in. So for me, I use it as intended, share information that I want, when I want.
Business Perspective: Rig Lynx has a company registration, you can register your company, get added to their digital company listing, added as a pin to a map of services. The intent here is that if you are a person or a company and are looking for a service to be performed you can easily pull up the map, scroll around and see what is in your area and then make your decision by tapping on the pin. When you tap on the pin it will open into what is called a v-card. This v-card will list contact information, website and anything else that the company has registered with to allow you to make contact instantly with them. Companies are also able to post directly to the newsfeed as a company and mingle with personal users. Unlike some of the other networks that determine from the crowd of what material you are supposed to post or not post, there is not limit here what you can post, unless it is just purely evil, be realistic.
Final Thoughts
I am purely stating the obvious for the most part, but this is how I use the platforms listed, I see these as tools to be used in different situations. We teach businesses how to use each to gain engagement, visibility and reach for their brand either personal or professional. Not all platforms are created alike, just like your brand, it is different and has a life of its own and it’s important to capture that in the media that you or your company intends to post, sometimes it’s not that easy, we are here to help with that.
Greg Williams has been in the oil and gas industry for 26 years, currently a Rig Manager, an Author and the founder of Rig Lynx, a digital media company where he works with bridging communication gaps, connecting people every day and creating killer content for clients around the world.
You can contact Greg for any other information about this article or just to have a chat by downloading Rig Lynx on your iOS or Android device and connecting with him today!
