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Social Networking: is it for you?

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Posted on Wed, Feb 25, 2009, by Akira Morita

I just got back from a really good (free!) forum hosted by the hard-working folks at NWEN. Ian Lurie of internet marketing company Portent Interactive, Nathan Kaiser of entrepreneurship blog npost.com, Nick Huzar of social media site Konnects.com were on hand to answer questions such as “is it all worth it? (yes, but don’t try to cash in right away)”. I missed the first few points, but here’s what I gathered in a few bullet points.

• Twitter, good. MySpace, not so much. Having a blog? It’s a given.
  Being able to connect to random people is what makes social networking tools useful. More you can focus, the better it is. Also, it’s good to own your content. Host your blog on your own site, so you aren’t affected by your service provider (such as blogger, wordpress.com).
• Know Your Audience.
  Try and find an existing community that’s centered around your expertise or relevant to your product offerings. Engage that group first with your own contents, comments etc.
• Take It Slow.
  Hold your sales pitch. First, you need to contribute relevant values to your audience. Give aways are a great way to boost traffic to your contents, as well as having good contents and being talked about by others.
• Network.
  Get to know people, as you would in real life. “Engage them. Once they start following you, read your blog, they will know more about you. Doing business is much easier when you know each other,” Kaiser said.
• Communicate well. Don’t embarrass your mother.
  You don’t have to be an expert at Social Networking. All rules of engagement from real life networking applies. Lurie emphasized a need to demystify it: “You want to put your best communicator out there. The tools we use haven’t been around long enough to have ‘Social Networking specialists’.” Another useful tip: “don’t blog angry. If you do, you will be writing an apologetic post the next day,” Huzar said. “My rule is, would I have my mother read it?” said Kaiser.
• Have fun, or don’t do it.
  Asked about people running out of steam after a initial push, Lurie replied: “There’s no point doing it if you don’t want to. You’d have to be passionate about what you are blogging or tweeting. Out of my clients, I’d only suggested blogging (as a way to market) to about 10% of them.”

I am sure I missed some good points. Feel free to comment suggestions, other take-aways…