Did you hear the news? Has the shock wave traveled across the four corners of the globe?? What! You didn’t hear? Chris Brogan has abandoned Facebook for Google +!!
Chris has packed his bags and seemingly turned off the lights on Facebook for the last time and good for him, bravo, that is cool, that is hip, that is wicked and that is amazing!
Don’t follow his lead.
Why?
- The answer is simple; Chris Brogan is a marketing powerhouse, Chris Brogan is a powerful brand.
People will follow him wherever he goes, even when he makes a ballsy move and dumps Facebook for a platform that is not even out in the wild yet. Google + is still in that quasi-beta-cum-everyone stage.
When a guy like Brogan dumps Facebook, he is making a cool statement because he is one of the cool kids. Unless you are TED, your event or conference is probably not one of the cool kids.
When you dump Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare or whatever in favor of the next hot thing, you are simply shooting yourself in the foot because your fans and attendees may not be that rabid. They may not be willing to open a new account and spend hours learning how to use said platform just to interact with you.
They are however willing to do this for someone like Chris Brogan or Lady Gaga or TED or Ashton Kutcher. You…. Not so much.
Your conference or event needs to continue to utilize all of the social media platforms (some more than others) until they show signs that being on them is no longer viable or effective. Jumping off Facebook before it has even reached the top of the curve is stupid for you, brilliant for others.
For example, MySpace fell off a cliff, when a platform falls off a cliff and is in a burning heap at the bottom – that is when you abandon it.
Or look at it this way… as long as your attendees are on a platform, you should be on that platform because it was the attendee that clicked the like, subscribe, follow, or stalk button and you owe them something.
You owe your attendees the respect to communicate in the way they wish to be reached.
