I think I started with Facebook years ago. Not sure why, but the ability to connect with long-forgotten friends and keep them around for "just in case" seemed attractive.
Then I had a phase when I approved everyone as a friend which quickly created a huge mess. Facebook is great if you keep it to your circle of friends and should be used in that way only. Otherwise you may miss an important event because a guy you don't really know keeps sending all these spammy updates.
I use it to store photos of travels as well, it is a convenient way of having it. If I already decided to share my photos online, well at least then let my friends see them easily.
I long haven't understood Twitter and it seems to be the spammiest of all the tools. Currently I use it the bad way, following almost everyone that follows me. That's insane.
In my view Twitter should be used in these two scenarios:
- If you are a celebrity, you just want to have as many followers as possible. You can tweet about how you just scratched your back and everyone will be cool about it
- Just follow people you are truly interested in what they have to say. This means you would normally follow only up to 100 people and that you would actively engage in dialogue with them but also with the people who follow you. I need to go this route but clearing my twitter account will take a lot of time.
I was never a fan of LinkedIn and oh boy was I wrong. Today I consider it the most useful of the social networks because it is so targeted.
LinkedIn allows you to build your business network. You should be very strict about whom you allow in your circle, and the stricter you are the more powerful your profile becomes.
Connect to people you have successfully worked with in the past and try to get introduced to people whose work you have been following. This often means slowly expanding your network to their 3rd and 2nd level contacts, building up the relations as you go.
When sending a request to someone you don't know very well make sure you write a personal message, explaining why you want to connect with them. Never use the default LinkedIn message, even when contacting good friends (saying just "how are you today?" is much better). When you send a request with a default message, it tells you don't really care.
Lot of people do not realize that LinkedIn is the best search engine in the world for business. LinkedIn excels at finding work or hiring someone, something we are usually obsessed about.
Recently I revamped my LinkedIn profile and the views to it more than doubled as it appears now in more relevant searches.
You need to find the time to invest in fixing your neglected profile, and add as much relevant information as possible. The return on investment for your time is by far the best on LinkedIn of all the online social networks.
And finally Google+. I haven't yet created a profile there so I don't have much to say apart from why I didn't do it.
First, realistically I do not have the time to invest in managing another account. And secondly, I more and more fear Google.
Suggested reading:
- Facebook comments vs Blog comments
- The Valley is focusing too much on 140 characters and not enough on flying cars
- Life is beautiful virus
Posted in: Debate
9 Comments
Depends on how you use them...... gud for nothing if u chat all day long without any motive n a boon if u chat all day long if u chat with a motive... Use facebook for business promotion its worth using facebook to make some random friends its waste
Spend a very special holiday in our five-star hotel, located right by the sea. You’ll be treated like royalty in the spacious spa area, where you can simply sit back, relax and unwind.
I use Facebook to connect with my friends, LinkedIn to connect with the business world and people in my industry. I set up Google+ when it came out but like you I just don't have time to keep everything up to date. If you don't bother keeping your social media profile updated with intersting content then people won't interact with you.
LinkedIn is definitely great in helping online businesses achieve their goals. However, keeping an account and updating Twitter and FaceBook still helps nowadays.
LinkedIn is excellent for business to business commnunication. The community are engaged and targeted and makes it an excellent platform for online marketing.
Depends on how you use them...... gud for nothing if u chat all day long without any motive n a boon if u chat all day long if u chat with a motive...
Interesting take on LinkedIn. I actually felt the same way until recently. Several of my friends lost their jobs and all ended up finding new jobs through connections on LinkedIn. I hadn't fully appreciated its value, and am still trying to play catch-up a bit.
As for Twitter, you are so right when you say it is very spammy, but I have had the pleasure of making new friends and connections there as well. You can do it even when you follow a lot of folks. It just takes some time and energy.
Heh, you made some good points about the way twitter operates, and definitely agree with you as entertainment business have more followers than any other online stuff, its therefore a real challenge for other online business owners.
It seems LinkedIn is the relationship site for the professional -that's great news. Keep twitter for the weekend boredom maybe..