Having A Punt On Social Media

Every year when the grand national comes around I like to have a little flutter on the horses. I don’t pick one horse because although form comes in to play and there is some skill involved it is a bit of a lottery with 40 horses and 30 of the biggest fences in the world to jump over 4 miles. My tactic is to pick 3 or 4 horses and back them in a variety of ways to ensure I get the most out of the race as a spectator. With 20% of horses usually falling over the first 3 fences nobody wants to be scrunching up their betting slip after only a couple of minutes.

How does all this tie in with social media? Well social media is also a marathon and not a quick sprint. You need to back multiple services if you are to succeed. Some services will go on to trimuph in the long run and make it all the way to the end (Facebook) but others where you spend valuable time building community will fall flat on their face early on (seesmic, pownce, etc). Even services that were going well in the race at one time and looked like sure winners (Myspace) can start to falter late on.

You want to be using your time as effectively as possible because it is precious, your currency as it were. I spread my time on social media and I think you should do the same by following some of these rules that work for horse racing just as well as they do for social media…

Spread The Risk

Just like I do on the horses you should do the same and pick 3 or 4 services where you are going to spend most of your time. Chances are one could flop after a couple of months and lose the audience so you want to make sure you have a couple more in the game. Analayze the market and see what works best for you but don’t be scared to go with your gut on one or two.

The Bankers

Some services are going to be around no matter what so you just need to back them and establish a presence. You can expect the likes of YouTube and Facebook to have minor hiccups during the race but still be there at the end, you need a presence on these.

Devon Loch

Read a little about this famous horse here as it is a remarkable freak story. It was so far ahead that everybody was celebrating and declaring it a winner before it suffered cramp and lay down 45 metres from the line. With that in mind don’t spend all your time on one service that is miles out front as the unthinkable can always happen. As if to prove my point look at this graph of Twitters 8% decline of growth in October…

Twitter Traffic Going Down In October 2009

Your Own Horse

Everybody usually backs their own horse. Your own horse is your blog, the center of your universe. The blog will always stay standing no matter what new technology or services come along. You always need to back your own blog.

The Each Way Bets

Each way bets won’t pay off big every time but they will pretty much guarentee you a good run for your money. Look for services where the odds might be a bit longer on achieving success and the audience smaller but can still get you a return (think Ning networks and Tubemogul for video here).

The Long Shot

The chances of a long shot coming in are very slight indeed but we all like to dream. The romance of the long shot is what horse racing and social media is all about. A long shot is a viral video or a funky competition that hits the masses. There is no harm in having a punt on a long shot but they will very rarely come in