When I give training courses or speak at events about social media people always ask me what the next new big technology is that they should be embracing to help their business. Over the last couple of years people even jump in with the suggestions asking if it is Foursquare, Google buzz, Quora, Google + or Group messaging. It’s in human nature to always want to be at the forefront of technology and being an early adopter on the next big thing. What I try to explain is that all these technologies come and go in no time and that people are better off sticking to the large established platforms if they really want to grow their business. You don’t have time to be wasting putting energy in to things that might not work so why take a punt with all that energy building a presence on a service that could be a ghost town this time next year.
Pick 3 Of The Big 5
There are 5 main sites or services that are more or less not going to go away any time soon. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube and blogging are about as mainstream as you get. They all have plenty of users, great ad platforms and ways of engaging with a mass market audience instantly. The temptation is to try and do them all and end up not really achieving anything but this is where the 3/5 rule comes in. Pick 3 of the logos below and focus on those platforms for your social media activity and forget about everything else. Even 3 could be pushing it if you want to do it all correctly. Building a following or audience on a blog or Youtube for example takes a lot of time and you will need focus and energy to do it correctly. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Less is more.

Ignore The Hype Except For Stunts
This time last year everyone was shouting from the rooftops about how Foursquare would be the next great thing. They have a tiny user base of 10 million and outside of the USA it’s use is niche at best. Having said that this time last year people were raving about it and developing all sorts of strategies for their businesses. That in my mind is pretty much wasted time. Time that could have been used on 3 of the big 5 above. The one time where new services can be used is to leverage them for a bit of free press or marketing stunts to grab attention. The first checkin in a certain place. First businesses offering deals etc. Beyond that it really is best to ignore the hype, stay focused and only jump on the bandwagon when the service has mainstream usage and you can afford to dedicate some serious time towards it.

The web is littered with services that people have invested time in only for them to die
Possibly Related Posts:
- Dominos Take Customer Reviews To A New Level – Giant NY Billboard
- Why Good Journalists Simply Can’t Live Without Social Media
- Job seekers subjected to social media background checks
- Will Mozilla’s BrowserID make usernames and passwords a distant memory?
- Daily deals exposed : how they really work for businesses





Blogging has been around for over a decade and Twitter for half that amount of time and the two platforms have lived happily side by side for the last few years but a new upstart is coming along quietly to wedge itself firmly in the middle and offer something new…
What makes Tumblr really stand out as something different is it’s incredibly simple to use mobile app that makes blogging just about as easy as it has ever been. The app has a super clean UI and taking pictures or capturing small pieces of text while on the go has never been easier. This is where Tumblr has really found it’s niche because although you might tweet on the go there is very little chance that you will write a full blog post (WordPress do have an app though) but as people seek to share more rich media content from their mobile Tumblr has stepped in to fill that gap. As we all start to embrace mobile more than ever and spend more time away from laptops and desktops Tumblr will grow even further especially when you consider that smartphones are not ubiquitous yet.If you have not used Tumblr on the phone yet you will be stunned at just how easy it is to use and if anything it brings even more simplicity to the act of blogging than the website itself.
WordPress Content Management System (CMS) Training Course



