Gabriel Harper's Blog

Social networking in business can be both highly rewarding and extremely distracting. Leveraging the strengths of social networking in your organization requires a strategic plan, education on social networking for key employees, and understanding it’s role in your business model.

Social networking connects with individuals on a personal level, and it’s important to respect this to build a mutually beneficial relationship. People don’t want to see your ads, they don’t want to hear about you, they just want to know what you can do for them. Get new users engaged with interesting news, activities, games, apps, and contests. Nurture your devoted customers by asking for feedback and acting on it, keeping them in the loop, giving them incentives to spread the word, and building up your tribe.

Whatever you do, don’t get caught in the usual trap: adding all the “friends” you can and hammering them with the usual sales messages in an attempt to “brute force” your way into the social scene.

Would you attend an important trade show or cocktail party to sling one-liners about your “hot new product” to everyone who would listen? Or would you introduce yourself, build real relationships, and seek out the real opportunities you would have missed otherwise?

Don’t think of social networking sites as a sales tool. Instead, regard them as a component of your organization’s existing network. Chances are, many of your influential online connections will be the same people you do business with offline, too.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 at 5:33 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.