With almost 500,000,000 people on Facebook, if it were a country it would be the third largest country in the world behind China and India and right ahead of the USA. Online communities of this size would have been difficult to imagine even a few years ago. The world is getting smaller. Back when I graduated from high school I had a little black book with my girlfriend’s and some of my drinking buddies phone numbers. No matter how good you are at keeping in touch with people (holiday cards, postcards, phone calls, etc.) eventually you lose touch with a lot of people. Fast forward to the last few years and I think we can all agree that Facebook is the world’s largest high school reunion. I think that about 90% of my high school class has reconnected on FB. It has been a lot of fun catching up with …
Twitter is the World’s Best Real-Time Tool
There was a time not so long ago when we were dependent on the major media outlets for all of our news and information. Those days are over. For good. Twitter is the world’s best real-time tool. Imagine a cocktail party where you could listen in on any conversation on any topic that you wanted. That’s just one of the many uses of Twitter. I call Twitter global text messaging. You can send a tweet (a 140 character maximum message on Twitter) to an individual or you can send it out to the world, kind of. Now, let me say up front that Twitter used effectively is one of the most valuable tools you will ever use and used ineffectively it’s one of the worst spam tools ever invented. Obviously, I’m suggesting that you use it effectively. My MO is that it’s all about relationships. Using Twitter correctly leads to …
Technology Skills AND People Skills in Social Media
Successfully using Social Media to grow your business, identify clients and business partners and many other business outcomes relies less on being a computer geek and more on effective people skills. Is it just me or does it seem that everybody and his brother is a so-called “Social Media Expert”? I find that it’s kind of like being a lady- if you have to tell people that you are, maybe you’re not. I recently heard a very highly respected Social Media authority (based on credibility and not self-professed) say “those who call themselves gurus only do so because they can’t spell charlatan”. I got a chuckle out of that. Just because someone knows all the bells and whistles regarding Social Media, that in no way indicates that they are someone who knows how to build and sustain relationships. The tools of Social Media are sites, applications, and other computer stuff. …
LinkedIn Is a Database Impersonating a Social Media Platform
LinkedIn is the world’s best online business networking platform with over 65,000,000 professionals using it and the average user being 41 years old and earning $109,000 per year. Not a bad demographic for doing business with. As the world is getting smaller, the number of professionals using LinkedIn is getting bigger. Unlike a number of other networking sites, this is not an electronic bathroom wall. Professionals who use LinkedIn most effectively realize that LinkedIn is a Social Media platform but in reality it’s really a database. It is a database in the most literal meaning of the word. You can strategically search through LinkedIn and identify people and organizations that you want to sell to, create alliances with, hire, refer business to, network with, and add value to as a professional. One of the most attractive features of LinkedIn is the merging of the users’ contacts. We’re all familiar with …
It’s All About Relationships, Sweetie!
Here’s the paradox: many people still think that Social Media is about technology. No, it’s all about relationships, sweetie. The “sweetie” comes from the kiss acronym, “keep it simple sweetie”. Way before anyone ever invented a computer, people looked each other in the eye and build relationships. If all the power in the grid went out tomorrow and no one could get online, people would still look each other in the eye and build relationships. As my friend, Bob Burg, says, “All things being equal, people do business with and refer business to people they like, know and trust”. This is no different whether online or offline. One of the great outcomes of the effective use of Social Media is that it increases the “like, know, trust factor” before you even have your first personal interaction with another person. This is a wonderful way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace …