Lessons Learned from Growing a Social Network

Over the weekend, I added Tumblr and Instagram to the social networks which I use. 

I've tried and left Myspace, been through the many privacy concerns of Facebook, learned to condense my thoughts to 140 characters for Twitter, surfed the many channels of YouTube, and participate in the so-called ghost-town of Google+.

Throughout all of this, I've learned a lot about how each social network functions, the target audiences for each, and most importantly to those young executives running these companies, how to make a social network – well – work.

At least from a user’s point of view. I’m not a programmer, and I have no idea how to make a social network. But making a social network extremely intuitive, and user-friendly makes it more likely to be used, and in turn grow.

Just look at Myspace as it struggles to re-build and re-brand itself after losing over 75% of it’s original user-base.

So listen up Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of you that run social networks – here are my top five user peeves.

Not Everyone Wants to Login Using Facebook

One of my biggest peeves while searching for social networks, are ones that only let you join using your Facebook credentials. With all the privacy issues which Facebook has had, the shear mention of credentials and facebook sends shivers up many spines. Facebook has been known on more than several occasions to change their privacy policies seemingly without letting its users know until after the fact, forcing people to log in and turn off a “feature.” 

Aside from privacy concerns, not everyone wants to share their facebook profile with another social network. I use Facebook for keeping in touch with people I know and see in real-time, while my preferred social network for everyone else is Google+. So I don’t want to share my facebook credentials with all my social networks, because I don’t add everyone to facebook.

We all know that facebook makes arrangements with other social networks and mobile apps to share data so they can make money off us. But social networks that only let you sign up and in using your facebook profile aren’t to lose a lot of potential members, that don’t want to share that info. 

Interoperability with Similar Networks

I did my homework and joined Tumblr and Instagram because they are in the top 10 of most popular social networks in North America.

They are partially in the top ten because they are seamlessly integrated with other similar social networks. When I post to Tumblr, I can instantly share the post with my Facebook and Twitter followers. And when I upload a picture to Instagram, it shares it with Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter.

Cross-posting is big in terms of social networking. It allows you to share your content with all your followers, fans and friends, everywhere, regardless of which social network they are on. And the more you share, the more likely your content will be shared by others.

Social networks that make it hard to share content across multiple platforms – like the original Myspace, or don’t even provide the option, make it harder for their users to grow their social networks, so guess what? It makes it hard for the social network to grow itself to as a business.

Now, when social networks start adding Google+ more to their sharing options I’ll be happier than a pig in you know what. 

Mobile Apps that Make You Use the Website to do Key Tasks

It’s great to be able to access your social networks from anywhere, using a mobile app. What really sucks is when the mobile app lacks key functions, forcing you to log into the app on your mobile web browser, instead of using the app.

Klout’s app has improved greatly over time, it used to only show you your Klout score, rendering it almost useless. It’s a lot better now, but it still missing key functions which force me to check in on the web version at least once a week. I can only see my top influencers on the app, to see everyone else, I have to log onto the web version.

YouTube’s new app for IOS allows doesn't let you delete a video you uploaded. This was available in the previous version, when the app was native to IOS 5 and earlier. But since Apple didn't make it a native app (pre-installed app), the new YouTube app doesn't have this key feature.

Facebook’s app has come a long way too – used to take forever to load, and occasionally crash on my iPhone. The new and improved app is awesome, but how come I can’t change all my profile and account settings in the app? I have to go to the website to do that.

The mobile version of any social network should let you do everything you can do on the web version, only streamlined for mobile devices and bandwidths. 

Enforcement of Mobile and Web Standards

Here’s an odd one which isn't all that common, but stumped me for the longest time, and prevented me from having my Windows Live Hotmail on my iPhone for almost two-years.

For the past two-years, I've been without Hotmail on my iPhone, because every time I tried to set it up, it wouldn't authenticate.

I finally figured it out – Windows Live Hotmail only allows fewer than 20 character passwords. When you enter a password on their website, it automatically truncates it, so any characters you enter past the 20 character limit are ignored, and you gain access to your account.

However, on the iPhone app – and possibly other mobile devices – any characters you enter past 20 are included, you get an authentication error, and eventually locked out of your account, upon successive attempts.

Grrr ... for those of us trying to make our passwords strong enough to prevent problems, Microsoft certainly created a big problem for me!

It would have been nice if the iPhone app truncated characters like the web version, or at the very least, just not let you type in more characters than were accepted.

(I know 20 characters is a lot, but I’m nutty about security.) 

Announcements that Scare You

Another rare one, but still it happens – when you get a pop-up on your phone or on the website which looks like an error message, but is just an announcement, message or alert about a new post or friend.

Fear may move people, but if you scare your users too much, just like crying wolf, your users will soon stop reading these things. And if people don’t read the posts, what good is the social network?

Are You A Hard Person to Friend, Fan or Follow on the Social Networks?

You want more friends, fans and followers on facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and the other social networks – right?

Of course you do – silly! So why make it hard for people to add you to their circles, friends or fan pages?

Here are some quick tips to grow your social networks and increase your Klout scores.

What’s in a name – plenty! Would you follow back someone who’s name has several offensive words like the “N” word in it? What if you publicly respond to that person, than the “N” word is in your public feed for all to see. Not to mention, what kind of idiot refers to themself in such terms?!?! I don’t follow back these morons, and judging from their lack of followers, most don’t either. Avoid using swear words, derogatory language or suggestive slang in your online handles at all costs.

Don’t make following you a typing test. Computer security experts tell us to make our passwords complex long strings of letters, numbers and symbols to make it hard for others to break into our accounts. However ___r$ndman042K$lLeR may be great for a password, for social network name you’ll make few friends. Is that two or three underscores before the name? 

A picture is worth a thousand followers. Just as you shouldn’t use offensive language in your online handle, a rude, offensive, or questionable image for your avatar will also scare away potential followers. Sex may sell, but if you go too far you’ll be wondering why no one is following you.

Content is King. Before I follow back someone, I check out some of a person’s posts to see what it is I’m subscribing too. If all I see are meaningless quotes, or blatant sales pitches to increase my followers, I don’t add that person. Having a good mix of useful, interesting and engaging content encourages me to follow someone. And it isn’t hard to have interesting content – often just talking with your current friends and followers will produce that. We are talking about the SOCIAL networks here, so it’s not a bad idea to actually TALK to people. Having links to blogs like this, or your own blogs also helps. Sharing content from your other social network sites among them not only provides a source for content, but grows your followers too, because if someone likes your tweets, they are bound to like your posts.

Beggars can’t be choosers. I hate people who beg me to follow me, or use the Follow-For-Follow (F4F) attempt to gain followers. You know those tweets or posts that show up in your stream as “@heydude707 f4f me” or Followback. If you check out their friend/follower ratio, you’ll usually see that they follow back less than half of those who are following them. I ignore, and in some instances have blocked people that continue to pester me with these pleas. Don’t beg for attention, make me WANT to give it to you.

Follow Back to be followed. I’m not the only one that checks the friend/follower ratio – many others do too. If you don’t have a decent balance of friends to followers, I’m thinking that you may stop following me, or not follow me back, so why bother adding you? I’m not saying follow everyone – from this post you’ll know I certainly don’t. But follow those who seem like good, genuine people that have followed you.

It’s all about You. Although everyone is trying to monetize their online presence, don’t obviously be all about the dollar. I’ll follow business profiles, but only if their feeds show a real person posting real content. Remember – it’s all about the content. If all the posts are about the company’s products or services, or asking me to check out their website, I ignore ‘em like a kid given broccoli for desert. Sweeten the deal, give me interesting posts which I can share with my social networks, and I’ll follow you back in a quick mouse-click.

Social Networking Isn't for the Faint of Heart

Phew! This social networking thing isn't easy. Let me rephrase that -- it isn't hard to do, just takes a lot of work.

I've had a Facebook, Twitter and blog for some time. But in my zeal to keep up with the Jones', I've been spending the past month revising and starting anew.

I axed my old blog and started this new one, which is not as specific. Means I can unleash more of my zany ideas upon you and my fellow readers.

Muwah ah ha cue the maniacal mad scientist crazy laughter.

Just kidding. Maybe.

Seriously, this social networking is a major time sink. It takes me about two hours every day just to tweet back those who tweeted me. That doesn't include finding and tweeting all the cool things I tweet.

I dare to be interesting, engaging, even a little titillating at times to make you think.

The most interesting stuff on the social networks is the stuff that makes you think. I can't understand why much of what I see -- particularity on Twitter -- is useless fluff. People quoting everyone from Abraham to Zeus and everyone in between. People begging me to follow them, claiming they'll follow back if I do.

If there is any one thing I've learned about Twitter, it's this -- when someone out of the blue says they'll follow you if you follow them first, they are full of shit. They usually don't follow back. And they usually have little to nothing interesting to Tweet about.

I spend about an hour every other day going through my Klout. Yes, that's Klout with a 'K' not a 'C'. Klout is pretty cool, tracking your popularity on the social networks. I enjoy watching my Klout score rise.

But to get it to rise takes so much time. I probably spend an hour or more updating my Pinterest each day. Its an interesting concept, sort of a scrapbook of images stolen off the Internet. I wonder how much longer it'll last before it gets slapped with a bunch of copy right infringement legal threats?

YouTube also takes time from my already busy day. Again so much crap on here -- please tell me why there are so many teenage girls in skimpy outfits slamming boys of all ages for leering at them. Maybe if you put some real clothes on you'd get the respect you want. Just a thought.

Writing comes easily to me and it is my favorite part of this social networking phenomenon. I hammer out blogs like this in my sleep. Well, not quite, but it only takes me about 30 minutes to write these things.

I spend about two hours per day catching up with my friends on Facebook and Google+. I enjoy seeing what they are up too. And I enjoy reading their posts, commenting on their pictures and videos, and liking their links and updates.

Speaking of pictures and video -- the cool thing is you can share these with anyone around the world. I remember a time not that long ago, when you had to take your film to be processed by a photo lab.

Those were the days before everyone had a camera in their phone, and pictures and video were recorded on film. So, you only took pictures at special events and gatherings, like weddings, and around the holidays. That's what made those pictures special and memorable.

Remember those days? When part of a family gathering was everyone huddled around the family photo album, laughing and sharing their memories together?

Those are the times I miss the most. Social networking is great at sharing the events, but everyone is so busy uploading their video, updating their status, or liking someone's photo, they don't share that laughter in person anymore.

Oops! Got to go -- I'm due for a status update.  

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