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Phooey on Facebook
01/21/2010 06:00
There’s so much talk about social networking today that many of us — especially those of us that have become successful professionals without it — are learning to tune out. Phooey on Facebook. It’s another thing teenagers do. We’re too busy (too old, too set in our ways, too advanced) to learn it. It’s a marketing function; let them deal with it. And, really, we’ve gotten by without it just fine this far, haven’t we? Well, haven’t we? Not exactly. What most of us do on a daily basis is social networking — it’s just not necessarily on a social networking Web site. We attend chamber of commerce meetings. And some of us even attend CXO councils. We go to church gatherings. We have backyard BBQs with neighbors, etc. The conversations we have at these social gatherings are the ones that we can have on LinkedIn and Twitter. Social media marketing expert Amanda Vega goes so far as to encourage us to think of it like a business cocktail party (see the article, Using Twitter for B-to-B Marketing.) It’s really just a series of conversations with different people, exchanging information to find things in common, etc., and at times uncovering opportunities to do business. When you look at it that way, you’re practically a professional social networker before you’ve even logged on. Aside from networking for sales opportunities, it’s also a great place to network to solve problems. In social networking parlance, that’s called “crowd sourcing,” and it can be more effective or at least much faster than traditional methods. You probably heard about how in less than nine hours MIT met DARPA’s Network Challenge to find 10, 8-foot, red weather balloons hidden around the United States using this method. On a much less dramatic scale, Vega said she uses this method to find answers to her questions about a specialized software application she uses from other users in her industry without having to sit on hold for the help desk. But, there’s no reason it couldn’t be used for other types of problem solving. Take, for example, the question of ways to build customer or employee loyalty. You could go to Amazon.com and order a book about it, or you could get a more industry-specific view and ask your peers about what’s worked for them as we did in articles on customer loyalty and employee loyalty. Instead of calling them up individually (assuming they are even in your address book), you might discuss it at an event like the Peer-to-Peer Networking Mixer PHONE+ is co-hosting with PlanetOne at the upcoming Channel Partners Conference & Expo, March 1-3, in Las Vegas. Or, rather than wait, you could post a discussion on the Channel Partners Network on LinkedIn or tweet your followers on Twitter right now. The important takeaway here is that Facebook, et al, won’t replace face-to-face meetings. In fact, many times they are a precursor to them or can be used in tandem. If you are attending the Channel Partners Expo, for example, you can check Twitter to find out where the happening parties are. With social networking apps like that soon you’ll be asking how you ever got by without it. Khali Henderson
Editor in Chief
Twitter: khalihenderson
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