Very first, let me admit that I am a total neophyte when it comes to social networking. I got involved with LinkedIn about a year simply because some of my enterprise colleagues had been on it and told me that I really should sign up as well. I got a Facebook account a few months ago as a way to keep up with what my daughters and their families had been doing. And I recently signed up for Twitter because it is one of the huge 3 in social networking sites.
The significance of these web sites in terms of communications is startling when you look at the numbers. To reach an audience of 50 million people, it took radio 38 years, television 13 years, the Internet 4 years, and Facebook 2 years. With these statistics, it’s hard for me to ignore social networking and say that it is just another fad or novelty, and not actually relevant to business.
There were most likely those who said the exact same thing about television when it was in its infancy. I am reminded about the quote from Jack Warner (of Warner Brothers studios) when asked about talking movies. His response was, “Who wants to hear actors talk anyway?”. We all have to be careful about being trapped by our paradigms about what is or is not relevant to enterprise.
Social networking is a way to marketplace beyond traditional means. It enables a person like me who is providing professional services to connect with more men and women than would ever be economically or physically achievable through other traditional and advertising means. The arithmetic is very simple-if I have 100 contacts in my social network, and those contacts every have 100 contacts that they can connect me with, then I now have 10,000 contacts. If you go 1 more iteration, the number becomes 1 million contacts. By the way, 100 is a conservative number. As a newcomer to Facebook, I currently have 129 pals. My oldest daughter who runs her own PR organization, has over 900 pals.
I have discovered that social networking is a way to stay in contact with clients and potential clients. It is not so a lot about selling goods and services, but a lot more about being able to give things of value on a continuing basis and staying in touch. However, I heard far more than one marketing consultant caution those who grow to be overly enthused about social networking that social networking cannot overcome or make up for a poor advertising technique. Whatever a firm or person does with social networking needs to be consistent with and support the firm’s overall marketing strategy.
What social networking is bringing to the advertising arena is the men and women touch. It makes businesses of any type personal. No matter what item or service your offer, social networking is an chance for buyers and potential buyers to see inside the organization or organization. There is obviously a potential downside with this transparency. People can post just about anything they want about any subject on the internet. Men and women will post their negative experiences more often that their positive experiences. Social networking is a way to counteract negative publicity.
In addition to marketing, social networking is becoming widely utilized for recruiting new employees. It is a way to get referrals for positions that might be open in your company and to get unsolicited data about the person. Anyone who has had to check out references for a possible candidate knows that the data is extremely biased. No job candidate is going to provide a reference that is not completely supportive of the candidate. Past employers are really cautious for legal reasons of supplying any info about a job candidate. Social networks can offer data, both positive and negative, that can’t be obtained through other means.
Information obtained by way of social networks needs to be verified in some way for accuracy. For example, I have read extremely negative reviews of restaurants that I personally have had excellent experiences with. If it is a restaurant that I have not been to, I will look for more reviews or try to find somebody who has been there, prior to immediately discounting it simply because of a bad review.
There are a number of social networking internet sites out there proper now. It is like anything new in that there will be a rapid growth period followed by the normal consolidation and rationalization. Look at how many distinct search engines there had been a few years ago, and now Google dominates.
Choosing which social network sites to become involved with is not an simple choice. Those which are the largest may possibly not be the best from a business perspective. For example, MySpace is the second largest behind Facebook, but it is dominated by teenagers and has been declining in usage due to the fact if this.
An associate of mine did an informal survey of his clients and contacts and found that Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter had been the most employed websites. These are the three that I have chosen to use as well. Every has a distinct focus and purpose. LinkedIn is helpful for making contacts and acquiring recommendations. It is usually targeted at business experts, where the other social networking sites are much more general. For example if I wanted to get an appointment with somebody I didn’t know, I could use LinkedIn to ask people I know for a referral. Facebook is primarily an information sharing web site to update folks on what you are performing now and to locate out that they are doing. The things you put on Facebook are the same things that you would discuss with an individual over a cup of coffee. Twitter is similar to Facebook in that you can update who you or your firm are doing. Twitter is the fastest growing of the internet sites because of it structure and ease of use.
In summary, I don’t think we can afford to ignore social networking and its possible impact on any enterprise, but as with anything we new need to be careful and selective on how we use it.