Social Networking: A Worthwhile Investment

Here’s the conundrum – you want more business, but you are already working your buns off handling client projects, fulfilling orders, dealing with infrastructure, employee and independent contractor issues, delivering presentations, rushing to meetings, hopping planes, attending empowerment and organizational workshops, and chatting with new contacts at all kinds of networking functions.

In between all this, you’re connected, to your phone, PC or laptop, feverishly checking your emails and responding via some kind of enabled device every 12 seconds. So when in the world do you have time to supersize your connectivity via online social networks?? How can MySpace, facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube have any relevance for your business?? Isn’t that stuff just for teens, wannabe rock bands and geeks who don’t have a life?

The simple answer is: NO. Although there are silly people doing outrageous things (some making complete asses of themselves for sure), there is real business done through these portals and others, tons of of it.

Pick up WIRED magazine, check out any number of online marketing or advertising resources (MarketingProfs, AdAge) and you will see the buzz is not about IF social online networking platforms are working, but HOW they are working, and why it’s more than time to jump onboard.

The digital landscape is constantly evolving, and industry insiders have lots of valuable info and insight, so I trekked to NYC yesterday to attend AWNY’s Social Networking breakfast.  Execs from LinkedIn, Hulu.com, Dove and several top creative agencies discussed how the platforms can be used to target specific market segments as well as provide real data on consumer needs, preferences and developing habits.

Specific success stories highlighted the facts:millions of people are actively using these interaction portals for a full spectrum of meaningful lifestyle-enhancing and buying activity: whether it’s finding work, catching up with old college buddies, or landing lucrative new business deals. The best part about all this for the small business owner, is that these particular opportunities to build brand awareness, reach new prospects and make more money, are FREE!!

So, yours truly has recently stopped complaining about how much time I don’t have to be involved with this stuff. Like Dove and Geiko and a slew of the major brands, I’m testing the waters. Each week I’m joining new groups, strategically creating profiles, inviting colleagues and following national experts. All this action has already created exciting new client opps and peer engagement. I’ve already found several great people to friend in Boston, London and California – and I’m getting invites all over the place.  I must confess after one week I am happily “tweeting” as much as I can! (Check out my posts at Twitter.com, at marcomwhiz.)

I’ll let you know what develops as far as real business and how much these tools actualy cost me in terms of time taken away from other important tasks. In the interim, I challenge you to get moving.  Start slowly and with a specific business objective. Post to a relevant blog, create your own, connect with new leads through common friends, or join a new social networking platform. Do something within this terrific digital sales and marketing platfom and see what happens!