See the first six reasons to participate in social media. Here are four more reasons to participate in social media.
- Develop social connections over time on social media sites. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace allow much more “fun” than the more professionally oriented LinkedIn. Connections send me karma and virtual plants from Facebook, as an example. While both of these sites started for young people, mature professionals are increasingly joining them. Despite the fact that a friend’s daughter tells us we are too old for Facebook, it is increasingly populated by professionals, too. In fact, mature professionals were, last I checked, the fastest growing segment of new participants.
Be careful what you share to safeguard that professional image referenced above, but don’t doubt its power to expand your relationships. An added plus? College students, whom you may want to recruit, populate these sites and are well-versed in their use and comfortable reaching out from them. One of my nephews disappeared from email recently; another niece sent him a message on Facebook and he was back in touch with me that day - on my Facebook wall (page). - Provide a space in which the users of your product or service can interact with you. Consumers want to have a conversation with you about their wants and needs. They want to tell you how you can better serve them. Many of them want to build community around products or services that they love. Give them the opportunity. Blog, sponsor user forums, and answer user comments.
Use your customers’ feedback to improve; it’s much easier to zap a note off to you on Facebook, or to comment on your blog, than it is to write a letter to an anonymous company address. Be out there. Interact. Zappos, the only shoe store I purchase from anymore, has a lively feed on Twitter. It’s just one example. And, if you need a strategy for helping your customers find you and talk with you, go where they are already talking and join the conversation. In fact, do this, too. - Build community around your product or service. Are the people who are the “face” of your company approachable, likeable, knowledgeable, and out there in social media? You need to find these people and nurture them. They are increasingly the voice of your company. More than paid media opportunities, such as ads, television commercials, and traditional mass media approaches, the online world seeks company and product evangelists who build a community of people who follow them and whom they follow. Word of mouth marketing/advertising (WoM) provides the most powerful opportunity for you to reach people and for people to reach you.
Forums and blogs on your company website, forums and blogs within your Human Resources Intranet, and other online community opportunities build this sense of community. Both within and outside of your company, you need to develop relationships. They are your communication life line - for employees, for mutually beneficial networks, and for your continuing career advancement. Create them; use them; value them; benefit from them. - Finally, Betsy Weber of TechSmith Corporation, sent me a note worth heeding. Your company, in addition to individual employees, needs to establish a company presence on significant social media sites. The recent Cone Business in Social Media study indicates that "93% of Americans believe that a company should have a presence on social media sites and 85% believe that these companies should use these services to interact with consumers." Of the study responders:
--60% of Americans regularly interact with companies on a social media site,
--43% of consumers say that companies should use social networks to solve the consumers' problems, and
--41% believe that companies should use social media tools to solicit feedback on products and services.
The Internet has opened up communication across world boundaries. Why not use its social media components to expand your network, enhance your career, add friends, make connections, recruit employees, find people with scarce skills, develop candidate pools of passive potential employees, and enlarge your world view? I’m participating. Why not you, too?
