Geofumadas, 1 year in Social Networks

A year ago I decided to put Geofumadas into the context of Social Networks. The figures are crude and speak very little, but I want to take advantage of the article to express my perception on the matter.

January 2012. Followers on Facebook ……… 15,946

January 2012. Followers on Twitter ...... .. 1,079

I admit, it cost him to find attractive sense to the subject of social networks, including more than once the critiqué like spaces to waste time. However after a couple of years I must admit that they play a significant role in the dissemination of knowledge and are an irreversible trend in the semantic web, since they constitute a new Internet based on people and not the conventional one based on pages.

The two platforms are different, they share very little in terms of “social” utility, because while Facebook makes the need to find known people obsessive, Twitter exploits people's need to know what is happening at the moment. But what has made companies look at it with big eyes is because what is inside there are real people –almost-, segmented and connected by common interests. Perhaps there will be a bubble of falsehood, but we cannot deny that these networks work by connecting people who have a real life of which they share something in context.

The role played by Facebook and Twitter is similar to that of news programs on radio or television. They are interesting at the moment, but they will go to the abyss of the wall and will not be consulted again as it happens with a newspaper from three days ago, which only serves to wrap fish.

So out of the common interest person-person, for businesses the gain is in the audience, because as it grows, a message on the wall is read a lot of followers, if they are interested they share it and so the viral chain brings more followers.

How useful is Facebook for businesses

The most common use is to connect people, families, find classmates from that year at boarding school, etc. The obsessive is even dangerous, but already a common magic; We attended a birthday from a nephew and in a moment are the photos where if we neglect we are tagged with full cheeks.

Beyond that, for businesses or sites, the viral reach is impressive. Reaching almost 16,000 followers in a year has left me wondering what Facebook will be like in the future. The advertising invested there is very effective, since you can choose that an ad is seen only by people between 22 and 45 years old, who live in specific countries, who share common interests in words such as AutoCAD, gvSIG, dgn, kml, topography, etc. . As a result, you get followers who are loyal to what you expect except for age, because here there are a large number of minors who have had to lie on their date of birth to be accepted by Facebook.

But outside of finding followers, you can learn a lot from those followers who have said Like to our site:

For example, the statistics of Geofumadas fans shows that 18% of my readers are women, 82% are men. The largest group (28%) is between 25 and 34 years old, generally finishing university and in their best stage of productivity. This cannot be easily seen in Google Analytics.

It takes some time to be able to make a fan site walk, as it is not only replicating the content that is published on the website. There is a need to add additional topics that are viral, such as photos and videos. Additionally you can add gadgets with which you can insert other data, as I have done, including AdSense ads on a Facebook page, which I previously believed could not be. The interaction of users who share or choose the content as I like are the best proof of what works best, as each site and audience is different.

What is Twitter useful for?

Unlike Facebook, Twitter does not have a social makeup based on people, but rather on topics. Although the same, everything you say ends up on the wall, and will be lost in the abyss as time passes, with less recycling because there are no profiles, functional searches and there is less interaction with videos or photographs.

It is impossible to supplant the social use of Facebook with Twitter, as their characteristics are different. But the power of influence is greater than on Facebook. Followers are valued more, because fidelity is also of higher quality; if you spam or post trivial matters you will immediately notice the “unfollow”. There is no way to advertise yourself unless you are willing to spend $5,000 a day; something that only big companies or artists do.

It is very handy to find useful content to recycle by writing, or to know the sites that look like what we do. Unlike Facebook, there is less to do here, although it will surely evolve over time to offer more usability as is the case of recently implemented business pages. Also, the way third-party applications make the content more attractive than on the official site, it increases its usefulness, especially on mobile phones.

Other networks

The companies also exploit LinkedIn, although I personally use it more for professional contacts, for what is very good.

Youtube is very powerful and is used by those who produce multimedia content.

Others ... walk around, with smaller contexts.

In conclusion

Works. There is more traffic coming from social networks, but the biggest gain is in knowing more about the followers. The sites and companies will have to join this, although at first they do not know exactly why, the process is irreversible, as are the subscription lists and syndicated content.

Here you can follow Geofumadas on Facebook

Here you can follow Geofumadas on Twitter