Social Networking

Social media pro­vides meth­ods for social inter­ac­tion, turn­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion into some­thing you can use to inter­act with oth­ers across the Internet. Unlike news­pa­pers, TV, and movies, social media can be almost imme­di­ate, and fairly cost free. That’s a sim­pli­fi­ca­tion, but there’s a deeper expla­na­tion here.

Social net­work­ing can be an impor­tant part of your busi­ness. Or not. NetLingo says it’s an online com­mu­nity of peo­ple who are social­iz­ing via a par­tic­u­lar web­site. It’s good to keep an eye on sites like Mashable, and know that social net­work­ing is out there, but it is not a “given” that social net­work­ing will bring busi­ness to your website(s) or local busi­ness. In other words, there isn’t a for­mula for whether or not small busi­nesses and non­prof­its should host blogs on their web­sites … or have just a blog.

So social media gives us the appli­ca­tions and meth­ods to do social net­work­ing. Lots of good stuff out there, but while some­thing may work for your best friend, you need to decide if it’s what you need to present your­self and your busi­ness. You are dif­fer­ent. Unique. That’s where you start. We can talk and deter­mine whether this is a good idea for you now, or in the future.

Should you have a blog? Good ques­tion. In a sense, blogs are an open forum, and they are a pow­er­ful way to com­mu­ni­cate online. Each sit­u­a­tion is dif­fer­ent. You are dif­fer­ent. Unique. That’s where you start. The same is true of hav­ing a Facebook page and a Twitter page, and a Foursquare page, and a Google Plus page, and on and on. Can you use them to your advan­tage? That’s the key. Not name drop­ping. Anyone can cre­ate a web­site. But how about an effec­tive one? Same thing with blogs. Or writ­ing books.