Social Networking as a Business Tool

You gotta love it when this happens....

I've been thinking about today's topic for a while. Early this morning I responded to a question in one of my LinkedIn Groups that basically said, "Now what?" I have an account on LinkedIn, Facebook and Spoke. Big deal, what do I do with them?

I started working on my post and then became distracted with some other tasks. Up pops an email from my The E-Myth Insider newsletter and what do you suppose the topic is? "Getting on Board the Social Network"

If you query Google for "social networking" business tool , over 400, 000 articles will be returned. A quick review of the “top 10” indicates that the perceived value is, “Social computing and networking can enable organic and bottom-up innovation (as opposed to the traditional top-down model of organizational hierarchy).” Or, Social Networking for Recruitment. The general consensus is, “Social Networking is a tool that allows people, regardless of physical location, to connect over shared interests, discuss relevant issues and share information in a faster, and often more efficient way than ever before.”

All of this may be true, but I think that most of us are missing the boat. I think that we are going about it all wrong. Let's look at LinkedIn specifically. What do most people do when they create an account on that site? They "link" with people they know (good), most likely people doing exactly what they do (bad). We tend to adopt the "birds of a feather" mentality. Techies link with Techies. Retailers with Retailers. You get the picture. The network has a strong tendency to be affinity based.

Where is the business value in that? I KNOW the answer, but that is NOT the value that I am looking for. As the owner of a small business, what I Really want is new business. I don't really need to expand my relationships with people IN my business. I need to establish relationships with new clients and customers.

I think that what we really want to do is to build our "network" with potential clients and customers. The easiest way to do that is through Groups. Rather than joining groups composed of your peers, try and join groups composed of your potential customers. The beauty of the social network model is the EXPANDED network. You only need to link to a few people to be associated with an exponentially larger pool of potential customers.

Once you are in the right group, follow the Discussions. If there aren't any, create some. Focus on addressing the principle problems and issues that group is facing. This is after all why you are in business, isn't it. If your business, does not solve problems for your customers, you don't really have a business. Seek to become the "resident" expert for the group. Techies are especially good at this. They'll post all day long on how to solve various problems. The PROBLEM is that they are posting for other Techies, not for potential customers!

LinkedIn Groups also have News. If there is News, comment on it. If there isn't any, create some!

The real opportunity here is to REACH new customers. Once your "customer" network is in place you can then begin to reach out to your 2nd level contacts. I would recommend that you use InMail and that you create an individualize email leveraging your 1st level relationship. You don't want to spam folks, but we are all here to Network, so if your message is relevant and sincere, you shouldn't have any problems.

We are in day 2 of a new year. I would challenge each of you to give this a shot. Look at your current list of contacts. If you don't have a potential new customer in the list, invite one. Once you have that first customer contact, search the 2nd level contacts and ENGAGE!. Try and introduce yourself to at least one 2nd level a week. Let me know how that works out for you.