One of the biggest questions I get on a daily basis is should I be on Facebook, Plaxo, or any of the other social networking sites right now for marketing purposes. What I have found in my research is LinkedIn is the place to be. The people who get on LinkedIn do so for the purpose of connecting with other people regarding business.
The others, well, not so much. My experience on Facebook so far is I have found a number of people I haven’t thought about in years (and all their pictures are fantastic! What’s that about?). We’ve reconnected, played some games, adopted virtual pets, etc. But at no time has it been about business. When I ask people how they would feel to be contacted through Facebook about a business item, they all say it would be okay if it was absolutely right for them – can’t be generic at all. Several sales professionals I know have gotten off Facebook because it just didn’t give any results for the time spent. Sure it was fun for social purposes, but networking wasn’t happening.
There was an interesting BNet article recently on how social networking was going to shut down the recruiting industry. The plan was everyone would be linked to everyone else and companies would just network to the people. The problem is, how long does that take? And just because you can network to someone, are you sure they are the right person? There is still and will be long term a need for the people who put in the time to build their networks, contact the people and oh wait – CALL THEM. Because at the end of the day, it isn’t enough for most jobs to know if they can spell. It’s more about the interaction of the person.
So I say, get on LinkedIn and maintain it. If you want Facebook or Myspace or any of the others feel free, but don’t try to use them for marketing.
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