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I’m sure I am not the only one who has observed the impact Social Media has on growing your business’s online presence.  It has gone from an occasional poke on Facebook to hiring a Social Manager to handle all your accounts daily.  And that is only the tip of the iceberg as we can only expect this trend to grow and become more prevalent as time goes on.

But now begs the question, how often should you be on Social Media?

You can browse many websites that chart and graph all the analytics and information you need to know about social media timelines, posting frequencies and content material.  You can get lost in the amount of data out there.  When to post, what to post, how to post, who to post to?  There are some who are going to follow these metrics and dive into the Social Media pool head first.  For example, they will post on Facebook at 1:00 pm every Thursday and Friday because that is when they will get the most shares. Then there are some who are still unsure on what to do and are willing to take baby steps so they can get their feet wet first before diving in.

In my opinion, pretty much everyone falls under one of two categories:  Social Butterfly or Social Caterpillar.

Social Butterfly

What is a Social Butterfly?

A Social Butterfly has read all the articles and blogs about Social Media and has set their week up to follow it to the T.  Therefore, every day at a specific time, they post or share an article or a blog on a certain Social Media platform.  As a result, this will get them the most audience attention and succeed in delivering their content to the most individuals.  Furthermore, they flutter from Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter with the hopes of getting as many likes and shares as possible.

What is a Social Caterpillar?

A Social Caterpillar is the opposite of this.  They don’t follow any of the informed timelines or set frequencies that are widely reported on the internet.  In fact, they invest minimal time on Social Media and only do it because they have to.  Social Caterpillars know they need to use Social Media but don’t know what to do next or are just happy with how they are doing it now.  They are content with the occasional click of a like button or sharing an article they found interesting or accepting an invitation from a vendor’s Sale rep.

Social Caterpillar

I believe though that we were all Social Caterpillars at one time or another.  I can’t imagine anyone who has ever logged into any Social Media platform for the first time and are all of a sudden posting 3 blogs a day.  It just doesn’t happen that way.  NOTE:  playing Farmville on Facebook for 4 hours a day does not make you a Social Butterfly, you are more like a Social Couch Potato!

Where do you fit in?

social cacoon

Consequently, there are a lot of people stuck in a Social Media Cocoon ready to burst out.  How do I know, because I am one of them.  These people have dabbled with Facebook, sent the occasional Tweet and pinned some interesting boards on Pinterest but they have not evolved into a Butterfly yet.  More research and a little more experience and they will bloom soon enough.

This transformation, however, cannot be stopped. You can slow it down but eventually, all Caterpillars become Butterflies.  It’s part of Nature.  The Social Butterfly is here to stay and we need to accept it.  In fact, if you’re a business owner you might want to even embrace it.  People are relying more on a company’s Social Media presence than ever before.  From Likes to Posts to Reviews, these are all avenues for today’s consumer to decide if they will interact with your company or not.

So what is my point?  Good question.  I guess my point is that companies no longer take out newspaper ads or send out mass faxes to market their companies.  They are reaching out to their audience through Social Media.  Therefore it doesn’t matter if you are a Social Caterpillar or Social Butterfly or stuck in a Social Cocoon, as long as you are investing some time into your Social Networking, then you are on the right path.  Social Media is here to stay and I can only imagine what the future holds. Let us know what you think?