Is Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn For My Business?

Interesting perspective and right on point...Tell me what you think of my recent blog post on the subject, "To tweet or Not to tweet" .. http://financialservicesindustry.blogs.xerox.com/

Karen, thanks for stopping by my little corner of the blogosphere. I just carved out out a bit of time to read your take on Twitter. I've been working around this stuff for a small time, and make no claim on having the corner on expertise - this is for sure :-)

That said, a few comments I might offer are:

1) here's a link to a recent post regarding technology's effect on relationships - from my perspective. In your post you asked if it might take 10 years for adoption, like online banking. Take a look at some of the bullet points and notice that (depending upon who you read) Facebook hit 100 million subscribers within 9 months (by some counts). Social media, is exponential in growth opportunity.

http://changeforge.com/2010/02/15/has-technolog...

2) In this same link (above), I reposted (embedded) a link to Peter Coffee's slideshare presentation. He's the Director of Platform Development for SalesForce.com. While you will miss all of the flavor of him speaking, the content is very relevant to your questions - and bring me to my final point.

3) I used to think things like Twitter were nothing more than ticker tape billboard services for people to advertise how many times they scratched their chin. That is how many use it - but the power is when that social channel - be it Facebook, Twitter or whatever - reaches a critical mass.

Then, that channel, for smart companies, becomes about listening - and listening closely. You see, as Peter Coffee so eloquently stated, "Web 2.0 is not about command and control. It is a choice of whether you wish to have the benefit of being present when people are talking about you, your product or your company. They are going to talk regardless."

What the vectors of technology and you will begin to see. Twitter by itself is really meaningless. When they bought a search company and tried to bolt it on, that became more meaningful. When you overlay the entire ecosystem of interactions that occur with Twitter now? Now there is real meaning in the data - IF you know how to farm it.

A couple of people you may want to watch on the subject:

Louis Gray
Seth Godin
Chris Brogan

I like that you are thinking. I can tell you have a good head on that shoulder of yours.

Cheers,
Ken

Ken, I appreciate the emphasis you put on the question, why? Creating a twitter feed won’t bring you an instant audience. It’s not the holy grail of marketing. It’s a tool that is best used for listening and sharing. And I like how you’ve pointed out the fact if you’re going to do it, do it right because in then end it’s your brand and you don’t just want anybody to be fooling around with what you’ve built.
As a marketer, I am always struggling with the question, who is my audience, and why is this product important to them. I’ve found Twitter to be an excellent tool for helping me market my company and better serve my audience. My end goal is to expand the reputation of my company through social media and you don’t do that by talking about yourself, you do that by sharing the stage and getting other people to talk about you.
You gain respect and get other people to talk about you by posting relevant information. A twitter feed is much like a press release, but without the gate keeper of the news outlet and with only 140 characters. Relevant news gets picked up, just like relevant tweets do. 140 characters is a title and teaser, which is exactly what people look for when deciding what press release to read or skip over. It’s a perfect medium for directing people to valuable links and when you push other people’s links and stories that would be important to your customer base, you gain trust and followers.
What I find frustrating about social media experts is that they use these really big corporate examples of how one person shot themselves in the foot with a tweet, or how a political campaign or a nonprofit was able to rally an exorbitant number of people to join their efforts. They do this to show the importance and value of what they bring to the table, but are they speaking to your needs. Twitter is great for Haiti, but does that mean it’s great for your small to mid size business. The two aren’t the same. The big corporate examples can be fear inducing and the nonprofit ones inflated and a completely different beast than what you are.
Today’s audience is more educated and has more resources to challenge your credibility than ever before. While some organizations still make false claims, the internet is an excellent fact checker and people get burned. Here is a big corporate example that is scary. About two week ago Facebook announced a new “green” data center. I am in the data center business (Immedion). So I do a daily twitter search on everything data center related to know what people are talking about and what matters to them. Within a week of Facebook’s announcement it came out that their “green” data center is powered by coal. That 140 character tidbit spread faster and further than the original announcement did. This probably won’t happen to you unless you are the size of Facebook. People would have to care a lot about proving you right or wrong to go out of their way to bring you down. Be honest, don’t make false, claims and you’ll be fine.
Followers don’t equal customers. Looking at the example of a nonprofit, yes, twitter and social media efforts work incredibly well. Word of mouth spreads the message quickly, but not every touch point equals a dollar. Is your goal to have a million followers or nurture 20 valuable customers, vendors and partners?
Use twitter to read what your customer base is reading so you can direct messaging to what is important to them. Twittering is not about you, it’s about nurturing an audience and providing content they’ll find interesting so they’ll trust your brand. Share the news your customers are putting out there. Spread the word about important things happening in your industry and when it’s relevant, share good news about your company. Once you’ve established a presence and trust, people will start spreading your news too and when they do, be sure to thank them for it and return the favor.

I am not an expert, just a practitioner and hopefully what's working for me will work for someone else.

Natalia, good to see you the other day, and I love the insight you provide. Obviously, you are very passionate about this subject - and I appreciate the advice that you encourage companies to essentially use social media tools to "be in the same room" with their customers. What I find so funny is that the principals of human nature transcend and permeate the technology or trend itself. Listening is a skill learned and once applied shows immense respect in communication.

Warmest Regards,
K

I wouldn't take anyone's answer to the question, "Is Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn For My Business?" That is a question that must be answered individually, but I did read this article to see how others are thinking about it, and Ken delivered. It took about a minute of my life, and I took away the important point that a social media consultant is on par with a VP position. That is certainly original thought. The trend in Social Media thought is that any unemployed web-surfer can sell themself as a Social Media Marketing expert. Ken's article reminds me that there is a difference between effective marketing and noise, and this is not a decision that can be answered in one blog post any more than it can be answered by a person who understands Twitter but doesn't understand marketing. It seems to me that many other bloggers would have you believe that social media marketing is easy and effortless, and can be outsourced as easily as yard care and oil changes. It takes effort, time, and experienced wisdom to convert social media activity into sales.

So you knowingly wrote an article with a provocative headline that you had no intention of actually answering? And you deliberately set out to write an "article" that is not original?

Kudos for your honesty, but why should anyone read an article that proposes a question that isn't answered and contains nothing original?

I wouldn't be so bold as to offer my "expert advice" as I have none. I would never set myself up as such. In fact, I came here looking for an answer to your headline. "Is Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for My Business?" You provided none. Nor did you specify any links or resources that might help me better answer that question other than some links to your friends.

That you purposely set out not to answer it is a disservice to your readers at best and downright crass, cynical and misleading at worst.

You ask for constructive criticism. I argue that I provided it. It's difficult to say anything more than, "you probably shouldn't be writing articles," if your goal is to mislead and provide unoriginal content.

You say you're happy to share links that would be beneficial to your readers. Then why didn't you do that in the first place?

I get the feeling you didn't really think through this column. It reads like a first draft that wandered away from your original intent and you never bothered to go back and revise it, the misleading headline or the premise.

If I come off as a bit touchy on the subject it's because there's an army of people out there purporting to be giving out sage advice when it is just more noise and navel gazing. Finding original, helpful content on social media is the proverbial digital needle in a haystack.

It's even harder when writers trick you into reading.

Brian, all very interesting observations. While your opinion on the
style of my writing is certainly open to debate - it would be my
observation a sarcastic tone often is intended to elicit an emotional
response and does not allow for constructive exchange.

I find it interesting you do not believe I addressed the question.

I specifically wrote this article to address the "army of social media
experts" who purport to have all of the answers. My role in business
is to elicit information and help decision makers make their own
decisions based upon their unique situations. This is always an "it
depends" answer as the solution which you (as a decision maker) would
have to weigh many options.
I would imagine you would agree that everyone is espousing SM as a
potential "get rich quick scheme" and how they have the formula to
ultimately be successful and grow your business.

I would ask you, how upset would you have been if I showed you
statistics and numbers about how great this has been for companies X,
Y, and Z - only to find out 6 months in to your initiative that you
weren't getting the results you expected? Who would you be angry with
then.

My article simply asks a question and sets the stage for what someone
in your position should expect. It is not a provocative title in the
least (or link bait). I have people ask me this all the time and show
me emails and letters from so called experts all the time. My response
is the same, "Why do you think you should?"

I would be happy to discuss live if you like. I would like you to
know, I don't assert myself as an expert in this space, I receive no
monetary compensation for this blog, and do not offer consulting
services based on social media. I am simply here attempting to serve
people - and I honestly applaud you for researching this topic and
being emotional about your business. This indicates passion and
concern.

When I say, my intent was not to be original, that is to simply say I
ask the same questions people should be asking themselves for
centuries in business - and life. My content is original, but I find
that by writing these questions it often entices people to ask it to
themselves. Clearly, you take issue with the presentation, and it is
the responsibility of the communicator so in that light I have dropped
the ball.

Again, if you want to discuss, I am happy to. Thank you for your time
and input. I will certainly take this under advisement.

The funny thing here is I agree with you on what you say your point is: social media "experts" are largely a joke. Bravo. It's certainly been said, but there appears to be more of a movement to recognize that. Great.

I do think that this is a "link bait" article, however. Why did I click on the link? The headline: "Is Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn For My Business?" I read the first sentence: "I receive quite a few questions about how to, how not to, why, whether, and should “I” use social media for “my” business."

So far, so good. At this point, I'm hoping, "Cool, maybe this guy has some good advice." Third sentence, I'm like, "Right on, there are too many hacks passing themselves off as experts." Let's see what this guy has to say that sets him apart.

And then the article fragments. It continues on the "expert" topic, then gets into some general stuff about what social media is and a little bit about how, in general, it can help your business, EXCEPT, you have to be careful.

Nowhere is the idea presented in the headline given even token notice.

Perhaps the logic of going from, "How can this stuff help my business?" to "Social media experts are full of hot air," is perfectly apparent to you.

I was going to suggest a simple headline change, but I don't think that would address my concerns. What headline would work? "Social media experts are trying to make money and, oh yes, social media can also be good for your business, except you have to be careful about it"

There's no coherent thesis, the structure is haphazard and quite frankly, your article doesn't present anything useful or new. At this point, I'd say the use of the word "article" is even misplaced, especially if, by your own admission, you meant this as simply a jumping off point for discussion.

But if you meant that, you certainly didn't clearly indicate that in the text of the article, either. There's no, "How has social media helped your business?" query at the end or even a general invitation to discuss techniques.

If I'm being harsh, it's because I care about writing and I care about social media. If you want to project yourself over the din of mindless "expertise" and "evangelism" going on in social media, I would suggest more planning before posting.

One of the fortunate byproducts of our brave new social media world is that thoughts and ideas flow freely and immediately. One of the unfortunate drawbacks of our brave new social media world is that thoughts and ideas flow freely and immediately -- often without reflection and forethought.

I can understand if you don't like the tenor of my criticism. I'm often guilty of being less than diplomatic. But I ask that you take the core of it to heart: If you're going to write an article, make sure you first have a clear, simple premise, then make sure everything that follows supports that premise. Yes, even the headline.

Brian, this is useful information. Tenor does not bother me, so much
as your initial response did not offer much insight or that you
actually cared. Your subsequent posts are most beneficial, and greatly
appreciated. I always enjoy critique as I believe fire helps shape
iron.

This last response was well directed and indeed offers specific action
points I can take to heart - and most importantly can see how very
passionate you are, indeed. I would enjoy the opportunity to read some
of your writing - on whatever topic. I could imagine you indeed
challenge the conventional paradigms.

Perhaps I should retitle the post, "Social Media: A Cautionary Tale to
Read at Your Own Risk." ;-)

Take care and thanks for stopping by.

So, do you plan on addressing the question in your headline or are you content with more social media navel gazing?

How is it that social media has inspired so many people with so few original ideas? And so many people writing "articles" with absolutely nothing to say?

Good God, man. You managed to write 700 words that say the same mind-numbing crap espoused by the "social media experts" you claim to excoriate. Oh, I'm sure you'll get an avalanche of comments saying, "YOU ARE SO RIGHT" from the social media tools among us... Solely so they can spam the link to their online profiles and dupe more people into giving their business.

"Social media can help your business. But it's a commitment!"

Hand this man the Pulitzer.

Brian, I am so glad you felt very strongly about the subject. Originality was not the intent, by the way. As with all things involving human nature, there is nothing original. My point was to ask those so enamored with the glitz of so-called "social media marketing" to thoughtfully consider it in their overall strategy.

I can't offer whether it is right or wrong. Perhaps you might offer some expert and original insight into the subject. I'm sure many out there are a little overwhelmed, and by your comments you obviously have it all figured out.

Sincerely, thank you for offering your opinion, but my suggestion to you might be to offer constructive criticism next time - not for me - but for those who actually need help with this type of decision. My only goal would be to open up conversation around these types of topics - not to offer the magic pill to solve all of the world's woes.

I would be happy to share any links you feel beneficial on this subject with my readership.

Respectfully,
K