The trend these days is to have a facebook page or a twitter account that people can like or follow you, which by any reasonable measure is a good thing, or so it seems on the surface.
But it had me thinking about a few questions…
Who really owns your fans, followers, or potential customers?
What if the network is down/offline or is shutdown permanently, could you still contact them?
What if the network kicks you off, blocks you or decides they are taking over your page/account is there much you could do to stop them?
Believe it or not the social networks are in control of your fans, followers, and potential customers.
Don’t believe me? Try to export your fans or followers so you can contact them directly…didn’t find the export button did you? Do you even know how to contact them directly or who they really are?
The truth is the ease of social media allows us to tweet or post effortlessly which has lead to us forgetting about how we used to communicate in the past.
Email was once and still is the King. It is the only way you can truly own and communicate directly with your fans, followers, and potential customers.
The solution is therefore simple, no matter what social network you are using, always try (with their permission) to get your fans, followers, and potential customers contact details.
Information like:
- Correct full name (recommended),
- Email address (minimum),
- Telephone (preferably mobile so you have an option to send a text instead)
- Location, gender and age (perhaps range) are useful information to keep as well.
You do have your fan’s/follower’s/potential customer’s email address right or does facebook/twitter have that too?
Twitter
Facebook
