Social Network Sites for Business - Twitter may be the wrong choice

Is Twitter becoming obsolete for business networking and promotion? Has it run its course and the novelty is starting to decline? Some businesses would agree. In the beginning, Twitter was promoted as the next big Internet social site. They promoted that you could stay in touch with all your contacts easily and frequently. However, from a business view, Twitter does not appear to offer any real benefit to business networking. Twitter only allows a limited number of characters to post updates. As a blogging forum, this is not enough to share real value in messaging. Do business professionals really care to know what you are doing at any given moment? Why do business people need to know that you are sitting on the patio? There appears to be no real marketing value from a business perspective. Short-cropped messages (tweets) cannot deliver enough marketing power like a blog, an email, or website promotion.

A recent online article posted by CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/26/has.twitter.peaked/index.html?iref=allsearch) suggests that Twitter’s initial hype has started to dwindle. The decline appears to stem from Twitter’s limited ability to offer business-networking features offered by many of its competitors. Business professional want to deliver marketing messages with impact, not just tweet a quick update. More and more business professional are turning away from twitter as a business social tool.

Many marketing experts will tell you the use of Internet Social Networking is a powerful tool for developing opportunities. I agree if you know how to use them. As with any endeavor, you only receive back what you put into it. Too often, a person signs up for a social networking site like LinkedIn and then waits for the leads to roll in. Wrong!

People want to find value in a network contact that helps them achieve a benefit. The benefit for each person is individual to that parson’s goal. Goals can be looking for a job, finding more clients, looking for advice to make better decisions, seeking expertise to solve a problem, and so forth.

Using online social networks means you must get involved and engage with others. Joining group forums and contributing your expertise is one example. The more you contribute, the more you will be perceived as a reliable resource and possibly an expert in your professional field. As you become more recognized as a topic authority, so will people attempting to make contact with you. You are in a stage of branding yourself and differentiating yourself from the crowd. There are so many ways to interact with others, but you must put forth the effort to receive any benefit.

This brings up the issue of identifying the best online social sites to use. That depends on your areas of interest. It also depends on your purpose to join. Are you seeking new business? Is the site a platform for you to promote your opinions? Whatever your purpose, you must first determine your objective. You must also decide how much time and effort you will devote to it.

Very important to use of virtual network sites are the features and tools available. There can be a chat feature, forums, advertising space, and more. Which feature(s) to us depends on the level of involvement you will undertake. Some sites have more features than others do. Use of features and how many to engage with depends on knowing what value you expect to receive from them. This also applies to joining groups on the site. Make sure the group is relevant to your knowledge and interest level. It makes no sense to join a group if you will not make contributions because the content does not fit within your goals. If you join a group and later find out it does not offer the benefits you anticipated, then remove yourself from it and find another. Last, do not join so many groups or engage too many features that it becomes unmanageable. Start slow and be selective.

Choice of online social sites depends on your objective. Whatever online social site you decide upon, you must be actively involved to receive benefits. Make sure the site you join offers enough features that will help you achieve your goals.