Social Networking? Try Some Real Networking.
Thursday July 23rd, 2009
With social media, content is key and understanding the rules and guidelines to communicating in each specific social environment separates the experts from the crowd.
There is a major misconception in today’s business world: Diving head first into social networking will provide a fast and easy path to new business. It’s far from the truth. Social media can have a major long-term impact when it comes to brand saturation and growing your fan base, but success comes with strategy and patience and is most effective when it is driven by traditional face-to-face networking. That’s right, you still have to clean yourself up and get out there. And that’s not all, Twitter, for example is only a valuable tool if it has potential to reach your demographic. That pertains to any social networking platform. Anna Banks of Organic (a leading digital communications company) was mentioned in a recent iMediaConnection article asking two major questions, “Is your audience on Twitter, and if so, are they active on the platform?” Maybe we should all be asking ourselves these questions before we fall deeply in love and devote all of our time and staff to social media marketing efforts.
Ask any Facebook or Twitter guru the last time they secured a quick and easy deal through social networking. Furthermore, ask them how they achieved such a following. You can be sure that they spend a lot of time offline, participating in real-life networking events. If social media is your answer to modernizing your corporate image, you have the right idea, but realize it won’t bring overnight success. It’s vital to keeping friends but don’t expect to make friends. Content is key and understanding the rules and guidelines to communicating in each specific social environment separates the experts from the crowd.
