Seminar 22/3/2010

I’m doing quite a few talks at the moment (usually 2-3 each week), and there seems to be a series of questions (or rather questions and comments) which are emerging as clear winners in terms of the amount of times they are asked.

They are:

1. I only want to use Facebook for my friends and family, not for business
2. I only connect with people I know
3. How often should I tweet/update my status
4. Which networks should I be using

There are no hard and fast rules about this, but from my experience, the answers are:

1. That is of course your choice. But remember this, lots of businesses including your competitors are using Facebook to engage potential clients and you could be doing this too. Remember, you can never have too many friends. These friends could become your customers, your advocates and your referrers… so the more the merrier!
2. That’s like going to a networking meeting and saying to someone who approached you ‘I don’t want to talk to you’! Not a great plan – the same thing’s true of social media, meet, greet and get to know people.
3. When you have something to say.
4. Well, this will depend on what your business does. I would suggest that every business should use Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Most should be using YouTube. Then there will be some other networks that will be worth looking at depending on your business – MySpace, SlideShare, EventBrite, Ning, Plaxo, Flickr… the list is certainly a long one. Part of this decision will be based on what your business can produce, and part of this will come from where your customers, prospects and advocates reside.

The most important thing to bear in mind is that it doesn’t matter which networks you want to be part of, it only matters which networks your customers want you to be part of.

Once again, having an open mind is the key.