The Social Media Bible - readwise.io  ## Metadata - Author: **readwise.io** - Full Title: The Social Media Bible - Category: #articles - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/173097745 ## Highlights -  ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j02zbentbnrs6thdkbwfgzwb)) ## New highlights added June 11, 2024 at 1:11 PM - Rule One: Social media is all about enabling conversations among your audience or market ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j03drxc65nmwma4qjrzrmzjc)) - The second rule addresses a natural consequence of enabling conversations: You cannot control those conversations. You can only influence them. This means that your audience really owns your brand. They will determine what your brand or your company means to them and the value it has in their lives. This applies to both customers and employees. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j03dt3hny8js071a38sgsnrf)) - Rule Two: You cannot control conversations with social media, but you can influence them. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j03dvrb8bah1ya0w7hw83fd4)) - Rule Three: Influence is the bedrock on which all economically viable relationships are built. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j03dwdn2asbg0rsx83dt8mw4)) - How do you determine content? Your content consists of:  Products and services you promote on the Internet;  Expertise you package, often to complement your products and services;  Things you allow or encourage your audience to contribute; and  Conversations about your content that you enable, influence, and archive. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j03e1jgt0kv6as0g0htahcsk)) ## New highlights added June 11, 2024 at 5:11 PM -  ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j03vcv2snecy5dfrt1yatkfr)) - A strong community does not necessarily mean a large community. Many people make the mistake of measuring their success with social media by the number of visitors they attract to their web sites, the number of listeners of their podcasts, the number of views they get on YouTube, or the number of people registered as friends or contacts on their social networking sites. They may be measuring the wrong thing. A lot of traffic is exactly what you want if your goal is to make a living through advertising. But if you want to sell your product or service, you want the right kind of traffic. This means you need to think carefully about your audience and how they might behave differently from one community to another. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j03xabv8cjq1gmmvhvkq11sk)) ## New highlights added June 11, 2024 at 7:11 PM - Metropolis Communities: MySpace and Facebook are examples of what we call Metropolis Communities. They have millions of members with diverse interests. Nearly anyone can join, even your business. That’s right, your business can have its own Facebook page. People don’t generally join Metropolis Communities because they’re trying to find plumbers, blenders, or mousetraps. They join because they want to have conversations with friends, share moments of their lives, and make new connections. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j042d9zxxw8vr0czk7d67wrd)) ## New highlights added June 12, 2024 at 8:11 AM - Vertical Communities: These are industry or lifestyle-specific communities where people with specialized skills and expertise interact with one another. There can even be vertical niches within a Vertical Community. A commu- nity of international petroleum engineers would be an example of a Vertical Community. Most Vertical Communities arise from specialty publications already doing business in a vertical space. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j05gyqdm9p1w1rkf3gh0y5hk)) - What functions andfeaturesdo Iwant tohaveavailable tomycommunity? What will be the expense of building and maintaining the community? Will I need internal human resources to build and maintain the com- munity, or can I outsource the work? How long will it take to get the community launched? What are my competitors doing in this space, and what tools do they appear to be deploying? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j05h0r6jy2agkwapcwyey43c)) ## New highlights added June 12, 2024 at 9:11 AM - Align Your Content with Audience Needs. Remember that you are trying to build a community around your content. Think of your content like you would the features of a new product. Features have benefits. People buy or adopt something because of its benefits, not its features. In other words, they buy on the basis of what a product does for them rather than what it is. Benefits are recognized in the context of needs. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j05h8b7r77q5sjhyvj6v5dd5)) ## New highlights added June 12, 2024 at 2:21 PM - Encourage User-Generated Content. Your community will not really be a community without content contributions from its members. These contributions will be different for each community. If you’ll recall your visit to TripAdvisors.com, you may have noted that members of the community can post photos of the hotels they stay in. This is an excellent example of user-generated content. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j062hv8a69n0yt5szv5w7vz2))