Social Media Push or Pull

Social media provides two ways for you to get your message out. Participants can choose to 'push' their information out to others or take a more passive approach and wait for others to 'pull' in the information they choose. This distinction is critical, especially for businesses trying to promote themselves through social media.

The 'Push' approach places decision making in the hands of the sender. You decide the value of your message and who needs to receive it. You must be careful that what you think is worthwhile, others don't consider unwanted and 'spamish'.

A good example of this occurs on LinkedIn where a growing number of participants are linked not only to each other but also to their Twitter accounts. Numerous, daily tweets may be appropriate on Twitter but invasive in the social media culture of LinkedIn.

Few realize that their LinkedIn connections can simply click 'hide' on the offending posts and subsequently not see anything posted by that person yet remain 'connected' to them. In this case, 'pushing' out unwanted posts results in the worst possible outcome for the poster, losing all contact with some community members and not even knowing it!

The 'Pull' approach allows your social media community to maintain control over what they want to view. By allowing them to retain control over the content they receive, you not only respect their choice, but also avoid being hidden from view. This approach provides an excellent mechanism for displaying your work and credentials to the social media community and potential clients, on their terms.