Success in Social Media is Not Always a Planned Event
Part of my excitement with social media is that success stories do not always happen because the individual or company planned it. Simply being present and an active participant, providing value and producing information worth sharing has its own merits and can lead to positive results.
Here is an example from just the other day.
PlanetGreen.com offers practical, everyday tips on how to live a greener lifestyle via their Twitter profile.
One of their tips was to “Switch Off These 8 Commonly Left-On Appliances.“.
Several people who follow PlanetGreen’s Twitter profile found this article valuable enough to “retweet”, including Rebecca Churt, whom I follow on Twitter because she is an active Twitter user, works and provides updates regarding online marketing, social media and blogging and is local to the Boston area.
I retweeted her update of the article and know it was then submitted to Digg’s environmental category at some point shortly afterward.
Later that evening, the Digg submission hit the Digg Front Page, which (according to the Digg Toolbar) has sent over 15,000 page views over the past 24 hours.
In addition to the 12 or so retweets via Twitter the article was also been picked up on the Huffington Post as well as receiving other links from Digg mirrors and Twitter which aggregate Digg Front Page submissions.
Key Takeaways
If PlanetGreen was not using Twitter as a way to communicate, people using Twitter may never have posted that article as an update. And if they were not providing information of value, they might not have over 2,000 followers, including Rebecca Churt.
If Rebecca was not actively participating on Twitter, I may have ignored her update. And in that case, it may not have found its way to the Digg front page.
Certainly there are a lot of “If’s” to the chain of events presented. But even the attempt at being active and productive in social media gives your company, brand or online marketing initiatives a better chance of realizing these types of success stories (planned or unexpected) as well.