marketing & social media strategist focused primarily on helping public sector organizations achieve their objectives more efficiently and effectively
international speaker and workshop facilitator on the topics of strategic marketing, modern communications, social media engagement and government 2.0
Public Sector Marketing 2.0 - Fresh insights on government, association, and non-profit marketing in a Web 2.0 world
I recently switched smartphones (now representing 50% of the worldwide cell phone market) from RIM‘s Blackberry Storm to Apple’s iPhone 3GS. Why did I do it, and more importantly why should you care?
The first reason is simple. On November 5th, 2009 Telus released the iPhone, finally taking the Canadian network monopoly away from Rogers (i.e. not my provider of choice to put it lightly).
Whenever I give a workshop relating to social media, I often ask the following question when talking about social networks: “How many of you are currently on LinkedIn?”
In most cases about 60% of the people in the room put up their hand. I then ask those same people: ” How many of you have ever actually received any value from being on LinkedIn”?
One hand usually stays up.
What people tend to forget is that in most cases you’re not going to “receive” value simply upon signing up. This applies to all social media tools/applications. You need to be willing to put in some work (i.e. “give”) in order to receive. The truth is, the majority of people couldn’t be bothered and thus never end up using their accounts.
It is for those people that I want to provide the following simple use for LinkedIn, which involves very little time investment. It’s often overlooked and yet it’s right there front and centre. Basically, by following these steps you can find and connect with almost any person, from any industry in any city. The bigger your network, the better it works (concept of 3 degrees of separation).
This sets into motion an automatic message that will be sent to the connector from your immediate network as well as the end person that you are trying to reach. The ball is thus in their court and you will receive an answer 99.9% of the time. Just remember to limit your first degree connections to people that you have either personally met, done business with, or at least chatted via phone.
Why does this work?
Simple: When people see an introduction from a familiar contact, they feel obliged to respond. Don’t forget, 50 million users wouldn’t have signed up if this stuff didn’t work.
Have a look at my “Quick Tip” presentation below , which explains this exercise in visual form.
It’s midnight here in my Montreal hotel room, and I can’t help to control my urge to rant about a term that has been coming up lately in the business blogoshpere and key marketing podcasts: “Facebook Fatigue“.
Basically, certain “traditional” marketing folk are getting tired of Facebook and the aura of hype surrounding it. They’ve tried some ads, or maybe even started a group, with no results. Further yet, they bombard their business e-mail lists with Facebook “friend requests” in what appears to be some sort of subconscious, pseudo-high school, business popularity contest. Then they sit there with 500+ contacts and stare at their empty Facebook “walls” and wonder why there are no signs of life.
Well guess what? That’s not what Facebook is supposed to be about. It was not made for “business” purposes. This was originally supposed to be a Harvard dorm room application for students to communicate with each other and see what their friends are up to. Within a few months it exploded all over College campuses across North America, the rest is history…
The vast majority of original Facebook users have “genuine” connections. Meaning that they simply added their offline friends and family to their lists; They simply brought the conversations online. If you request to be added to someones list (whom you don’t know very well) in order to promote your business or build a client database, you will stand out like a sore thumb. If you’re not careful you will do more damage to your brand than good. Facebook is NOT MySpace!
A large part of the group of people that actually “use” Facebook for what it was meant to be, consists of “early adopters”, (myself being one of them- on Facebook since late 2005). When the mainstream media got a hold of Facebook (most notably after the VirginiaTech incident), businesses came running in faster than ever before. Soon after, Facebook opened its platform to developers (Facebook Apps), at which point the floodgates flew wide open. The professional business world (most of which didn’t grow up using and learning proper etiquette of ICQ, MSN Messenger, etc…) started adding as many people to their “friends” lists as possible with an intent to either network or promote something to them…this is where “quality” suddenly took a serious hit and “quantity” was the new kid on the block. As a rule of thumb, I tend not to accept “friend requests” of people I do not know well enough to want to have a beer with them on a Friday night.
That being said, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Facebook has a ton of great advertising tools for businesses to help them reach these true social networks. While I’m still not particularly sold on the “fan” page idea in terms of my own business (I find they cater more to stores and artists), the targeted social ads are fabulous.
My point here is that if you’re going to use Facebook for business purposes, you must realize that what works for one business will not necessarily work for another. Fan pages work for some, but for others that want to create communities around a subject rather than a brand (and thus become authority figures), “groups” might make more sense. For those that simply want to build a business network, I recommend using LinkedIn. Above all, if you’re going to use any of Facebook’s great advertising tools, make sure that you know who your target audience is ahead of time so that you can cater your message accordingly. Finally, please stop talking about “Facebook Fatigue”. If it’s not working for you, then either re-examine your tactics (to see if they align well with your overall objectives) or accept the fact that Facebook is not for everyone.
