Is it just me, or are there way too many people using social media who are sharing way too much information about what they are doing at all hours of the day? Does anyone really care what you are doing 24/7?  I dont.

On a break from WORK ( remember that is what we all did before Facebook and Twitter came along) I watch the tweets come across my screen on Tweet Deck and I am nearly appalled at some of the stupid and ridicules posts people are sharing. I promise I am not making these up… coming right off the stream as I eat some soup. ( Gotcha, a status update while I complain about status updates… I am so social media savy!)

” I just got back from lunch with X and had Y to eat”….

” off to the gym”…

“wearing my Panda shirt”

“… getting ready to feed leo”

I swear I am not making this up. This is just noise. Do any of these people have lives? Have jobs?

Where is the tweeter and wall post referee to throw a flag? Some of these people should get a penalty for illeagal use of social media! How about a foul for social media interfearance?

Before you make that next tweet or wall post, maybe one should ask themselves the following questions?

1. Does this post pass on any relevent updates to anyone who cares?
2. Does sharing who I had lunch with and what we ate really contributing to the good of the planet, my family or my professional peers?
3. Does it matter to anyone past the 5th grade what you are wearing?
4. Does sending my 25th wall post or tweet for the day  merely a signal I am just unemployed or about to be since I have way too much time on my hands?
5. Since you are limited to 140 characters, does anyone have ANY frame of reference to what I am saying?
6. Does anyone think play by play updates of my average everyday humdrum, one level from depressing,  life, will eventually make me a star or celebrity?
7. Does bragging about your vacation to everyone who is working really make it more interesting?
8. Does posting while you are driving just prove you are really as safety risk to the rest of us?
9. Since all of us can use Google, why do you think it’s so cool to post quotes from other famous people who are indeed actually famous?
10. Don’t I have better things to do with my time?

Hyper- connectivity to people, companies and organizations is useful and interesting if the content is just that, interesting.  Too much social media stream news is just irrelevant noise.

Where is the referee? Someone needs to throw the flag! Illeagal use of the hands! interfearance or roughing the reader should certainly be called!

Connect with you later…

Fact: Customers will buy when they want to buy, not when you want to sell them.

Consider these data points:

1. According to report from Gartner Research, 67% of the prospective buyers who tell you no today, will be ready to buy in the next year.
2. 8o% of the leads you consider to be dead will buy within two years – Sirious Decisions

Since you cant “make” someone buy what is a marketer to do?

Simple: Educate.

If you have been following the steps for content that connects, first, you get their attention by activating the reticular activator with hot buttons. Second you engage the customer in a conversation and now its time to educate.

It’s human nature to want to know more. So feed people with education. Your content needs to provide educational tips.  A few educational tips will keep the conversation going and that is what you really want, keeping the customer engaged while they get enough information to make a decision.

The point of caution is to not dump too much information at one time. Our society has become a world where there is too much information thrown at us each day and therefore we are increasingly becoming shorter in attention span.  Smaller bursts of content that are direct and meaningful will be consumed over the big bulky messages.

Teach them and they will buy. Teach them and they will pay attention.

Connect with you tomorrow, we will wrap up the series of content that connects with the 4th step, the offer.