Social Networking -- How Do I Use It As A Business Tool?
We're often asked during Website Development how to integrate social networking, or "Web 2.0" elements. This article is intended to provide the basics of how to get started, and recommendations for effective results.
The Networking Principle
When you are at a party, with a goal to meet new people, what do you do? Or, when you are at a networking event, with a goal to make connections and promote yourself, what do you do?
Chances are, your answer to both questions is this: you get out there, you mingle, you strike up conversations, look for people with common interests, and when the time is right, you pass out your card or talk a little about yourself and what you are about.
What you don't do in order to accomplish either goal is sit against a wall and wait for people to find you. Or if you do, then you aren't very good at meeting your goal. What you also don't do is walk up to each person and start blabbing about how great you are and what you are selling and overwhelm them with your presence.
Social Networking online follows the same principle.
Start out by getting out there. Make a few connections. Find like minded people. Talk to them. Introduce yourself (a. k. a. your Website). Offer them something (advice, tips, humor). Make sure you are doing this only where there is a valid connection. Otherwise, it is just viewed as spam.
You can find these people and organizations by keywords or industry (e.g. health, music, fashion), or by company. Popular places to start are:
Once you find several blogs, groups, or sites you'd like to follow, you can keep all of the ongoing conversations neatly organized in an RSS reader like:
Another jumping-off point is visiting some of the question and answer sites (forums) where your industry is active. Popular places to start include:
- Yahoo Answers
- Facebook Discussions
- LinkedIn Answers and Groups
The Networking Principle
Once you've gotten your feet wet, the next step is to start distributing content of your own, as well as further developing the relationships you've begun. There are two very important principles to consider when you get to this step:
- Don't just post your own content. Use the relationships you've developed to "share" content with your fans/followers.
- Don't post just any content. Make it meaningful.
A little more about that second point:
Good content will spread like wildfire. Funny things. New, interesting data or facts. Top notch blog posts. The main thing is to post content that your users will like and that will keep them coming back. Content that speaks to them and their interests, and more importantly, problems they need to solve is the best kind of content. Write about what your users want to learn about, not about your products and services. Create a community, not a salesperson.
The idea is to create a kind of gravitational "pull" toward your organization. Think "would I share this with my best friend?" before you post something. If the answer is yes, great. If not, think twice.
Places to Post Content
The absolute essential place to post content: your own blog. You shouldn't be doing Facebook, Twitter, or the like without a blog. You can have your web developer start one for you or you can utilize one of the current blogging portals, like blogger.com.
Other Great Places to Post Content:
- Generate a podcast and post it to iTunes
- Generate a video and post it to YouTube
- Generate great photos and post them to Flickr
- Generate presentations and post them to SlideShare
- Generate an ebook and post it to eBooks
- Post all of the above to Facebook (an organization page, not a personal page) and link Facebook to Twitter so you only have to update in one place.
What does all of this take?
The answer isn't marketing genius...it is time. And don't expect your already overloaded employees to do this for you in their off time. This is serious stuff...it will have a significant impact on your business if you do it right and keep with it. Invest in it. Invest in the people you need to make it a success.
