When you meet business owners in real life at events, there’s a question that a lot of people are starting to ask each other: Are you on Twitter?
The micro blogging platform is becoming the thing to talk about thanks to a few high profile events. When the US Airways plane came down in the Hudson River in New York the mainstream media heard about it first from their Twitter feeds. And actor Stephen Fry has built up quite a following to his Twitter feed, even posting photos of himself stuck in a lift with a bunch of strangers.
Twitter is a form of social networking, where people use the internet as a way of connecting to other people. And the nature of it makes it the perfect way to not only reach new customers (and generate new leads), but generate what every business needs for long-term survival: loyal fans.
Social networking is increasingly about building or reaching communities of interest. For example, if you sold highly specialised mountain bikes, you could set up a Facebook group or a Twitter feed detailing developments of interest. Only those people who really care about the bikes would subscribe.
The worst thing you could do is just send sales messages such as “10% off this weekend”. Instead you could use your social networking to demonstrate the passion for the hobby you share with all your customers and potential customers. Saying “just got back from a 10 mile ride, caked in mud – happy” will endear you to them. When customers can connect to you at that kind of level, they become long-term fans.
Social networking came to the UK in the 1990s in the form of Friends Reunited. Now in decline, the concept was sound – a community built around people you lost touch with.
Whether the individual networks and website stay or go is irrelevant; the concept of social networking is here to stay. People tend to seek out information that is only of interest to them and social networking makes it easier than ever before to find people who like what they do.
There are new social networking developments every week which you can follow on websites such as Techcrunch. Here are the main players right now – and by that we mean the ones most people are using. There’s no point going to a social networking site that no-one is using.
The current big favourite. Facebook allows you connect to people you like and share things with them. You have control over who connects to you, giving Facebook a certain privacy premium. Status updates are a favourite, but the big opportunity for businesses is setting up and leading groups of interest.Bebo.com is a similar concept but aimed at a much younger market. MySpace was first but is based round a slightly different concept where you build your own page.
The one that’s getting all the attention at the moment. Twitter is about giving an update on something in 140 characters or less. That makes it very easy to scan updates from people you are interested in. The downside of Twitter is that anyone can see what you are writing (unless you send a private message or lock your updates). But on the whole Twitter is a great way to communicate. Bytestart uses it to send the latest business news to followers.
This is like Facebook but for business. LinkedIn works on the principle of six degrees of separation. So once you have connected to a trusted colleague, you are able to see who they know. LinkedIn encourages you to list your abilities and career history. Want to talk to the boss of a big company? Look them up on LinkedIn and see if a friend of a friend knows them.
Ecademy
Ecademy is also a business networking tool, but is quite a confusing free for all. Unlike LinkedIn which is all about putting together a trusted network, Ecademy seems to consist of thousands of people internationally who meet each other virtually. You can join different networks and clubs. Expect a lot of sales messages from people you don’t know!
YouTube
Increasingly the video website YouTube is being used for social networking. If you upload a video of your specialised mountain bikes and put the right keywords in, that will attract people interested in bikes, who can then leave their own comments. YouTube is owned by Google and videos tend to do well in natural Google searches.
Blogs and forums
Part of your social networking strategy should be to build your own social network. You can do this easily with a blog or even simple forum on your website. If you have something interesting and relevant to say you should build an audience. Focus on quality of audience rather than quantity.
Build your own
And if you fancy something a bit more interactive than a blog, why not build your own social network with Ning?
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