There are two sides to this discussion, those who think linking social media accounts is helpful to your online marketing and those that think it is hurtful to your online marketing plan. I'm going to present both sides of the discussion because I don't want to sway you one way or the other until the end.
Those that are in favor of linking the different accounts argue that it makes your online marketing and social media management much easier. Social media management is a very time consuming task. Streaming one account to the other cuts down on the time issue. Additionally, it ensures that your various accounts always have fresh content. If you aren't posting new, useful, interesting content people are going to find somebody who is. This side of the discussion also points out that not everyone is on every social media account. A Twitter follower may not be a fan of yours on Facebook. So by streaming and linking accounts, you can ensure that everyone is seeing everything that you have to say. This can also allow you to manage more social media accounts than you could if you were posting fresh content to each application.
Those that are against linking social media accounts argue that it duplicates content. They feel that if the customer can follow you on one social media account and see all the content you are offering as part of your online marketing plan, why should they bother following all of your accounts? This ends up hurting SEO and the ability to reach as many new customers as possible. This side of the discussion also brings up the point that each social media application may have a different type of audience. For example, you may not want to share the same content with your LinkedIn followers that you want to share with your Facebook followers. People also realize that you are streaming your pages and it may turn them away. Customers and users want to follow those that have something fresh to say, not people that are repetetive.
What's my position? Come on people, don't be lazy. Personally I feel that streaming one account to another as part of your online marketing is hurtful. This is not to say that when you post to your blog you shouldn't let people on Twitter know. Or if you update your webpage you can't share it on Facebook. This is also not to say that your profiles on social media shouldn't contain links to your other social media pages. However, I am a firm believer that streaming one account to another is more hurtful than it is helpful. Firstly, if your LinkedIn, Google+, or Facebook pages stream your Twitter posts (which are often more numerous than on other accounts) then it may annoy your friends or followers. They don't want all of those updates streaming across their pages and it may cause them not unlike your page. It's annoying, plain and simple. Secondly, if the content on all of your social media accounts is the same, people have no reason to follow you on more than one account. Remember, I am not telling you not to use your social media profiles to list links or usernames on other applications. Nor am I telling you to never post something from one social media account to another. I am just saying not to sync them and duplicate all the content.
Social media management is definitely not easy, and is absolutely time consuming, but you can start out slow. Start with one or two social media applications (I recommend Facebook and Twitter to start), then you can add more as you begin to master your system. If you are worried about the time aspect, use social media management tools such as HootSuite which allows you to schedule posts. This way you can sit down once a night and schedule posts for the next day. If you are overwhelmed and want to outsource, or if you just need some tips on how to master social media management, Contact Us.
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