Secrets to Success Deborah Cole Micek and John-Paul Micek

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Don’t trust network sites with your data

It's a mistake I see far too many marketers and entrepreneurs making. They are being lured into seductive social-media communities, wooed by and caught up in the passion of these interactive environments.

Then, without the right strategy, they invest hours of their time forgetting that the only tangible benefit (their database of friends or followers) is controlled by a third party that can change the rules of the game at any time.

A perfect example is how most users of Twitter had a rude awakening a week or so ago. Twitter users awoke to find their "following" and "followers" lists slashed in half or even worse.

Hundreds and even thousands of contacts gone! POOF!

Twitter's explanation:

"... Over the next several hours you may see inaccurate counts or timeline inconsistencies as the correct data is propagated to all parts of the system. ... Even after this recovery is complete, your counts may appear lower than previously. In almost all cases, this is not due to missing data. The counts we display on your profile page are not always up-to-date. For example, when we remove spammers from the system (which we've been doing a lot lately), the follower counts are not updated in real-time."

Twitter's "spam" excuse is a poor one. I, and several others I know on Twitter, personally visit the page of each new follower as new requests come in. It is clearly BS for several hundred followers to disappear, with Twitter saying they're "spammers."

That's to be expected and nothing to get upset about. It's a danger you should expect. Twitter can do and say anything it wants. So can any other social network. Any of them can change the rules of the game whenever they want. They can arbitrarily put caps on the number of followers or friends you can have. They can even delete people from your list at their whim.

The problem is not with Twitter, Facebook, or any other "free" social-networking channel. The blame rests with you, if you leave it to these services to have control over your contact list.

Social networks are merely communication channels, not storage facilities.

Keep the focus on your new-media marketing hub!

Social networks are only channels to leverage. They are not to be trusted with your most valuable asset: your contacts. They are conduits through which you attract and connect, but the core of all your efforts -- the home base for all your tribe -- must be your hub.

Your new-media marketing hub is where the ever-upwardly spiraling Tribal Seduction (TM) Action Trinity (Attract-Connect-Convert) yields the greatest long-term results.