Not long ago, I made a prediction that we’re nearing a social media bubble with fans, friends and followers. In 2007 and 2008, even the better part of 2009, the more friends you had, the better it looked to your network. Something had to give, though. I see MSNBC has finally defined this prediction with one word.
The reason why 668 friends do not look so good anymore is because too many people know about your business, who quite frankly you don’t talk to enough, or anymore. Let’s face it, not everyone needs to know what you are thinking or doing - it’s a priviledge you provide. Unfriending provides that control over your network, messages and content.
The same applies to business FB fan pages. If competitors start stalking your page on FB and becoming fans just to see what you are doing, you have a choice to make. The key is to monitor what conversations start on a page, or what feedback you’re gaining from your status updates, fan updates, comments, photo albums, etc.
My other favorite word lately in the Twitter sphere, is “hashtags.” Their purpose is to enable Twitter users to search for tweets by placing a hash # next to a word phrase. Especially good to know for hotels on Twitter, who want to search competitor’s deals, tweets, and trends.