Social Media: Quantity vs. Quality

Originally tonight's topic was going to be about content marketing again, but that changed. Yesterday, I was on twitter following Pam Moore (@PamMktgNut) for the Tuesday's Get Real Chats where she and others answer questions. It was the first time I was able to follow the vast majority of it and one of her tweets made me excited and I will admit that I may have been a little bit overly excited on this tweet:

This is the best tweet that summarizes my philosophy on social media.

The idea of focusing on your strengths rather than trying to be on every social networking site is not a mind blowing concept, but it is a concept that is difficult to keep in mind. To get your brand name out, you want to be on many sites. That's getting your name out, but is that really the best strategy to do? What this really boils down to is the idea of Quality versus Quantity.

Far too often the idea of Quality is forgotten in social media. People assume that if you post a lot or post at the perfect time of day or are on every social network, then your social media strategy will work. This is just a fallacy! Posting a lot or having a presence on every social media site just means quantity. It does not mean that the content on that site is full of quality.

When a company is running their social media site on the quantity idea, then they may not be successful in their strategy. They are spreading themselves too thin and, quoting the tweet above, you are unable to "focus... [on having] a solid presence, offer value & be [available]!" If a company is on every social network site, then who is monitoring it and are they spending an equal amount of time on each site?  If that is a difficult question to answer, then something has to be cut.

Running on the idea of quality is always the better plan. Not just on the foundation that quality serves a purpose (posting content... content must have a purpose), but this strategy will provide an opportunity to have solid and consistent presence, will be easier to increase value and it will give a company the time to be available and engaging with their customers.

My entire perception of social media is that it needs to be engaging. It is not an ad that is just forcing out information or just a sales pitch convincing you to buy into the idea of your brand, but is that emotional connection. In my opinion, social media is the personification of branding and to be able to achieve this, a company must be able to focus on being engaging and providing their social media pages with quality content that serves a purpose.