These days we are all being bombarded with invitations to a plethora of on line social networks and many of us are a little confused as to why in the world we should join one? While not all Social Networks are worth the investment of your time to join and input a profile, some such as Twitter and Plaxo can actually be very helpful in connecting with your network.
Twitter.com is a very basic site that allows members to post their name, picture, a URL to their blog or web site and a short description of who they are. The one thing twitter is designed to do is answer a simple question - "What are you doing right now?" There is a 140 character text box that allows members to answer that question and anyone following their profile will see the answer as they post it. In turn, members can follow other people to keep up with what they are doing. While Twitter may sound like something a teenager would use instead of instant messaging or texting on their cell phone, it actually has some great applications for business.
Take Seth Godin for example. Anyone can follow Seth on twitter which is great because he updates it every time he publishes a new post on his blog. A user can click on a link to the new blog post right there in Seth's twitter and see his latest post. Twitter is also a great way to throw a question out to a lot of people for a quick answer. For example, avid twitter user Marc Nathan asked "anyone have any cheap / DIY solutions for a digital display? Like a digital photo frame, but it's larger and can handle wireless updates" and within an hour Geri Druckman answered "use any flat panel monitor, attach to the back of it a Linux thin client (a cheap one) and voila! any size, no limit pic frame." Pretty cool.
But perhaps even more interesting is that Facebook and Plaxo allow members to publish their twitter comments on their profile for those sites (in the case of Plaxo, members post their twitters in Plaxo Pulse). As a result, a member's name can constantly be in front of anyone linked to them in Facebook or Plaxo any time they look at recent activity - talk about great top of mind awareness!
Plaxo especially has done a great job of aggregating other on line activity in several well known sites like technorati and flickr as well as personal blogs through the Pulse tab. Members of a user's network on Pulse can see updates as they are posted to multiple other on line sites consolidated in one place. Plaxo Pulse also offers forum functionality that allows users to poll their networks on topics ranging from business to politics and then interactively comment on and track the results.
While keeping up with a Plaxo Pulse stream or Twitter posts may seem like one more item in to keep track of in an already information overloaded workplace, it does provide something that many newsletters and magazines don't and that is highly relevant feedback. In a society that is starting to rebel against interruption marketing, getting feedback from a personal network can be invaluable in building meaningful conversation with prospects and customers.
One thing to consider when joining any social network is that you will get out what you put in. Followers on Twitter will lose interest if you do not create relevant posts on a regular basis. Relevant posts are not updates like "eating dinner", but rather updates like "Eating texmex dinner at Arturo's on Smith Street- the food is phenomenal". The first post would be of little importance to followers while the second would get the attention of anyone who likes texmex food and give some great free advertising to a restaurant that you like and would like to see stick around. And remember that if you set your Plaxo Pulse to post your twitters, you will want to make sure they are relevant for whichever groups you allow to see them. Also, make sure that you are following other users (either on Twitter or Plaxo Pulse) and contributing to the discussion of their posts as well - this is a great way to establish rapport with your connections.
