How many social media channels should you use for business?

In a nutshell - only the ones that are going to make a difference to your organisation.

With so many social networks out there it is easy to get caught up in a number of them, spread yourself thinly and not achieve the results you want. Wasting valuable time and money. I’ve seen this a number of times with organisations dipping their toes into the ‘social media ocean'. Setting up a number of social media channels because it’s what everyone else is doing or what they think they should be doing and then being disheartened when ‘social media just doesn’t work’.

If you have attended one of my social media workshops or training sessions you will be fairly familiar with the conversation prism - a visual map of the social media landscape developed back in 2008 by @briansolis. Not only does it inject some colour into my presentations, it also does a great job of demonstrating how vast the social media landscape is and the importance of having a strategy in place. 

As with anything, you get out what you put in, but it is important to understand where you should be dedicating your time. Having a clear integrated strategy linked to your business objectives, with well thought out channel selection and content plan will help you do just this.

So why am I sharing this? Version 4.0 of the conversation prism has just been released and it includes a number of additional social networks worth considering and according to its website, can be used in a number of ways:

• Show your executive team that social media is not a fad and that it’s bigger than Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest
• Share with your team to motivate them on new ways to think about social media
• Celebrate that you’re on the map!
• Study the landscape as you plan your next social media strategy
• Show the world that you appreciate art
• Give as gifts to everyone you know who loves social media or who needs to learn to love it

For those of you who want more check out the conversationprism.com have included a list of categories that have been updated below:

• Social Marketplace
• Enterprise Social Networks (shortened to “Enterprise” for formatting, companies included here were previously grouped under “Nicheworking”, which was redefined.)
• Influence
• Quantified Self
• Service Networking

PS For the geeks out there you can now buy the poster…

@lyannatsakiris