Facebook is one that I did not jump into early. I had been on MySpace and at first glance it just seemed like more of the same and I really did not see the value. Then my wife went on a trip to Africa with a bunch of mostly 18-24 year olds. When she got back they all bugged her to sign up on Facebook so they could share pictures.
At my house when someone wants my wife to set up something online, what that really means is they want ME to set up something FOR her online, so I did.
I was at it and set myself up a FB page also. Turns out my cousins were on and they found me and we started communicating via Facebook. At some point I let Facebook access my email and send invitations to people I know and find other people for me to befriend. That led to connecting with about 30 friends from high school. (I only had 150 in my class, so 30 is a lot)
I signed up for LinkedIn a couple of years ago, but did not really start using it until early this year. I would argue that it did not reach a critical mass until sometime this year anyway. (LinkedIn launched in May 2003)
Now I am on the latest craze Twitter.
It is a lot like real world networking, you have to put something into these sites to get anything out of them. I checked and I am on 19 different social media or networking sites. To be honest with you I really only work at what I consider the "big 3" right now. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The other sites get an occasional visit from me and the rest of the time they live on auto feeds from the biggies.
It's not really a revelation, but it struck me today how each social networking site has certain demographics. What really drove it home was a discussion on LinkedIn regarding the "value" of Twitter. I graduated from high school in 1976 and college in 1980, so I fit the majority demographics of LinkedIn a lot better than Facebook or Twitter. But I was shocked at the strong opinions from my demographic about Twitter. Quote:
"Twitter = a gigantic waste of time". In fact the majority of opinions seemed to run that way.
I had flashbacks to when I was in high school and my uncle told me long hair and rock&roll were the downfall of civilized society.
My reality is that I have generated about the same number of legitimate business leads from Twitter as I have from LinkedIn. I would even say that today I can get as many new leads from Twitter or LinkedIn as I would have at the monthly Rotary Club lunch 20 years ago.
You have to recognize the different demographics and "work the crowds" differently. You wore your suit and tie to the Rotary luncheon, but you probably wore a sport coat and no tie to the YPO happy hour. (If you were born after I graduated high school, Google Rotary Club to find out what it is) You can operate in multiple online worlds, just remember where you are and who your
audience is. I do it, so can you.
Here is my highly opinionated primer on the "big 3".
Very the three. Discussions tend to be serious. Selective networking is strongly encouraged but routinely disregarded.
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Most of the networking is done in the "groups", but some groups can get bogged down by all the
self-promotion. The best approach is to be very specific about what you have to offer, offer genuine advice on topics you know about, some self-promotion is essential but try to control it. If you had to Google Rotary Club above, remember the folks here don't really want to know what you think of the new Transformer movie. Plus if you post too often, they will start to think you don't ever work.
By far the youngest demographics. Information can be anything from totally random and frivolous to serious business information. Lot's of self
promotion, but do so knowing the risk that people can easily STOP following you. Generally follow to be followed. Find a few folks who are interesting and see who they follow and who follows them. There are any number of third party aps to make your
tweeting experience easier and more productive. Try them out. Try them all out to find out what works for you. Retweet and @reply freely. Use direct messages with discretion. Definitely
put a link to your website in your profile, it is the best way for folks to really connect with you off the tweet. Understand that Twitter is not really designed for networking, more for making and maintaining connections. (kind of like the cocktail party before dinner) If you are my generation, just relax, don't sweat it. You can only post 140 characters and by the time you hit return, there will be another 100 tweets from other folks, so even if you said the wrong thing most followers will just overlook it anyway. Another thing, don't be afraid to follow and be followed by people you don't know. It's ok, not creepy.
Probably the broadest demographics of the three. It also tends to be more personal. Business and marketing use has definitely increased recently, but it still has its roots in a personal connection tool geared towards college age folks. Don't be shocked by
Probably the broadest demographics of the three. It also tends to be more personal. Business and marketing use has definitely increased recently, but it still has its roots in a personal connection tool geared towards college age folks. Don't be shocked by
some of the intimate life details, including pictures, that people will share with the world. Use your existing email database to find friends on here. This is one site you might consider it worth having a personal and a business profile, but be warned some business contacts will find your personal site and vice versa. If all you want to do is connect with personal friends this is where you start. If you want to network for business purposes, start with the other two.
If you wish to connect with the author on one of his 19 profiles, go to the bottom of this page and you will see links for several of the more popular social networking sites. If have not made the plunge into social networking and know you are missing out, contact me for information on social media concierge service..you can use email. If you don't have email yet, I don't think I can help you.
PS here is a great blog post on the topic: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/19-presence-management-chores-you-could-do-every-day/
PPS interesting statistics on the growth of social media http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-is-social-media-one-year-later
PPPS still no convinced read How Twitter Got me a 6 figure gig.
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Another good primer on social networking. Written for CPA's but it applies to everyone.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tscpa.org/general/SocialNetworks.asp