Posted November 8, 201014 yr http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/ePHKell16mVUf4vuPuV4w7I-pG8/0/di</img>http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/ePHKell16mVUf4vuPuV4w7I-pG8/1/di</img> Seth Godin is a great personality, I admire him. Not every time, do you come across such a person with sensible ideas and thoughts. If youve been following Seth, you wouldnt have missed this video from Open Forum where he answered a question about social networking for business. The question was: Social networking for business: Is it valuable for business ? Yes/No. If yes, for what types of businesses ? Asked by Michael Silverman CEO, Duo Consulting To which Seths answer is: If youre on facebook, youre probably my friend. Because God knows, I have enough of them and its worthless to you. It is worthless to have lots and lots of friends on facebook because theyre not really your friends. Theyre just people who didnt want to offend you by pressing the ignore button. And if you have five thousand people following on Twitter because you tell a dirty joke every couple of hours, thats not particularly useful for your business either. The internet is like this giant cocktail party with all these people swarming and connecting as much as they can because theyre keeping score who likes me today, whos talking about me today. But one day when you need to ask them to authorize a hundred thousand dollar contract, it doesnt matter. What matter is – where are the real relationships ? Now, I have real relationships with thousands of people around the world. There are people Ive never met. There are people in New Zealand whod let me sleep in their living room for three days if I was in town. because weve done stuff for each other, because weve exchanged worthwhile ideas, because people have been connected by real things not just a couple of bits lining up. So my answer is, networking is always important when it is real and always a useless distraction when it is fake. What the internet has allowed, has it has allowed an enormous amount of fake networking to take place. And it is so easy so be seduced by it because you have a dashboard/scoreboard and look how popular I am, and its nonsense. If you measure it, it is like measuring hits to your website doesnt translate. What translates is – are there people out there who I would go out of my way for and who would go out of their way for me. Thats what you need to keep track of. And the way you get there is by going out of your way for them, and by earning the privilege of one day, having the connection be worthwhile. Seth is mostly right about social networking. What are the take away points ? 1. Large network of friends on Facebook or Twitter are useless because they dont translate to business 2. Worthwhile relationships with people matter 3. Keeping score of ones network presence is a worthless exercise Did he miss a point ? Absolutely. While I completely agree to Seths above points, I doubt if hes missed a few important points to discuss. What are they ? 1. Large social networks can still be valuable. While I agree that large social networks dont always translate to business, one shouldnt ignore their possibility of still being valuable. A large network of friends on facebook, may most definitely may not translate entirely to business. But that is not the idea, in the first place is it ? Think about it in real life. If you have one thousand friends, you wouldnt expect all of them to help you when you have a business proposal. That would be lame to ask. Similarly, in online social networks, you might have a network of one thousand friends, and a large part of them would have met you online, not offline. But that doesnt mean they are useless or not valuable. If you wanted such a focused network that would anytime help you in business/selling you might want to stick to real friends and family. But that again fails the purpose of online social networking. 2. Its not about five thousand or five hundred, but how many you can be friends with. This probably is more personal a question. How many people can you really talk to, have a good relation with, be friends with. According to Mr. Godin, a facebook friend is someone who adds you as friend and you couldnt be rude to them hitting the ignore button or vice versa. True. But facebook friendship shouldnt be about adding friends or accepting friends. Its beyond that point. I believe that, if you have business (or any other) interests with social networking, then you should also take some time out to do some homework from your side. Of knowing your new friend, of entering into valuable conversations. If you cannot do that much, you shouldnt even be on social networking. So being rude is not about hitting the ignore button, but accepting the friendship and then not not even bothering about the person then on. 3. Expecting everyone to help you is greedy and unfair. I mean, think about your real life. If youre someone whod go asking for help or selling stuff to your friends every time you need it, then I bet youd be ignored and rightly so. So dont expect the same with your online networks. 4. More friends shouldnt mean just numbers, but relationships. One overlooked fact in social networking, is the idea of numbers. I can understand why people love to talk about why having a big network is useless, because not everyone has a big network (probably). But what we miss to address is the fact is how valuable are these networks ? In my opinion, when you have a growing network, be it personal or business, the growth shouldnt be counted by the number of new people you add but the number of new relationships you create. And this always doesnt have to be by acceptance, it can be with arguments, disagreements, help or anything that generates a mutual interest. The important thing is that whether you talk to new relationships or not. 5. Online social networking for business is no different from offline social networking for business Yes, I stressed the business part of it. Business folks entering into social networking obviously have vested interests, which is fair enough. After all, they have their money on the table. But theres a catch here. Unless youre an already established brand like Pepsi, Coke or Skittles, you cannot go on Shout mode, on the internet. You can, but nobody really would bother. You have to be on Observe Listen – Deliver mode for at least a good first part of your campaign. The reason ? Nobody knows about you, nobody really care who you are and how awesome you are however awesome you really might be. So thinking about cashing in on relationships is a bad idea. Honestly, I get raised eyebrows when I hear the phrase Social networking for business..it is like House party for CEOs. What ? Summary So, the moral of the story is, don’t even think about social networking for business as your typical business networking event. You could pull it off offline with a networking event for CEO’s. They come to sell stuff, and everybody else knows it. But online, nobody really bothers if you’re at the party to sell stuff. You can, but you need their permission first. You have to have something about you that will get people interested. This is more important than selling stuff. I mean selling takes a back seat, and its about how you match up to others expectations, and how you fulfill one or more of their demands that really matters. If you don’t, then you got to stop there and move on. If you do, you stand a chance – to sell something. So, its not about whether these social networks can be “used” for business but, whether you can deliver something on your plate that will help the online community make use of. Let us think about selling later. Join Dailybloggr Community on FacebookSocial networking for business: Why Seth Godin is wrong was posted at DailyBloggr.com by Mani Karthik. Related posts:Social Media Strategy for Facebook – 10 reasons why its better than Twitter !New software lets companies monitor social media networking of employees5 Cool Tools to create your social media business card http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/DailyDose4me?i=UvoFswnRZ0g:Xl3k7Z2jBLc:V_sGLiPBpWU</img> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/DailyDose4me?i=UvoFswnRZ0g:Xl3k7Z2jBLc:gIN9vFwOqvQ</img> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/DailyDose4me?i=UvoFswnRZ0g:Xl3k7Z2jBLc:F7zBnMyn0Lo</img> View the full article
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