How To Split An Atom

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So what are we talking about today? How about Social Media to start. It looks like Stumble Upon power users have a new grail at their disposal, a fantastic guide to finding out your SU “Juice”. Still, the problem persists. No matter how deeply involved in a single network you become, you will still suffer from the problem of generating content incompatible with your pet community. SEO articles on Digg, for instance.

What’s the solution? Lets call it the Social Media Mix. The short version goes like this.

Social Media Mix

All meaningful online content falls into one of three categories: humor, technology or information. After you finish writing your latest opus try to categorize it. Before you say that “surely there are other categories,” re-read my sentence. What you need to finally admit is that certain categories of content are just not social media friendly. Your latest piece of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, for example, may lack the mass appeal you need to make headway.

Great, now it is time to decide whether your latest post is unique or throw away. If your answer is “throw away,” then the guide ends here. Set the post aside or integrate it into a more comprehensive piece.

If you have a piece worthy of submission, the next step is to understand the various layers of promotion:

• Social news (Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit)
• Conversational media (Twitter, Jaiku)
• Social networks (MySpace, Facebook)

Social News allows you to get a large influx of viewers, this is best for pieces with a wide appeal; conversational media is for when you want a large but more focused group of influencers reading your piece; finally, unless you happen to be a “new media marketer” whose Facebook friends list reads like a whose who of Silicon Valley, social networks are for sharing less pressing news with your inner circle.

Generally, you should choose a site from each of these categories to promote too. Maybe your article on Firefox tips would make a great addition to Digg, but why stop there? I am sure that most of your Twitter friends could use the same information, and it would make a useful link to float on your Facebook profile. While you’re at it, why not send it in too a related website (like Lifehacker) as a tip?

The point is that to get maximize use out of all of your articles you have to be willing to do a bit more than just let them float in the ether and hope that someone picks it up for you. Many blog authors think that their content will just sell itself. Like anything else, the only way anyone will learn about your work is if you show it to them.

Web 2.0 Roundup

The flip side to setting up a good social media mix is knowing when to stop. No matter how good you think an article is, sometimes it just doesn’t catch a spark. Instead of taking it personally, try to find out what went wrong and either use that to make sure that your next piece is better or co-opt some of the information from that post and use it in something even better.

Getting the most out of your work is a tricky business, the first step is to see all of your content as a product and recognizing deciding on which channels you will promote it through.

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