Lessons from Martin

I spend hours on Facebook weekly. I have reconnected with my entire high school class, found out things I shouldn't know about my seventeen year old step-daughter and teenage daughter, and have been scolded by my mother for making typos in my status update. I have "stalked" the pages of old crushes and heard from old loves. It's been fun. I have over 500 friends and have lots of conversation on my wall. My own business page, that's another story. I get stuck.

One of my co-workers Martin is my friend on Facebook. I don't see him often as we work in different offices. I actually only met him a few times live in person. Yet, I feel like he is a good friend. I check his Facebook page every day. In fact I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

I realized, Martin has taught me several good lessons about personal social networking that can most definitely be applied to business social networking.

1. Be yourself. Martin has a great sense of humor. He shares it in his writing and with the content he shares. I am getting to know him.

2. Engage your followers. Martin certainly does. Blog postings, You Tube clips, photographs-he knows his friends, he knows what they will find interesting and he shares that stuff.

3. Be consistent. Martin is updating his page daily...quite often. It's exciting because it's like there is always something going on.

4. Make your friends/followers feel safe to leave comments. Martin always does. There are always folks having conversation on his wall because Martin has created a safe area to do so. A group of like-minded individuals having conversation.

5. Be a resource. Martin absolutely does this. Whether it's a hot news topic, or the cupcake contest at work, Martin is my go to guy. I always know I can find something about the particular item on his page.

Bottom line, if Martin were a brand name, I'd be sold. If he were a restaurant, I'd be celebrating my birthday there. If he were an Association, I'd be a member. I'm going to take all my personal face book energy and start applying it to business....sans my mother's grammatical critiques!

Do you think Social Networking is just for kids?

It hit me the other day that some marketers of a certain generation aren't paying enough attention to what is going on in the Social media world. "Ahh, that Facebook is crap!" "What's a twit; tweet: tw...t anyway" "Email is for spammers." What a missed opportunity. As advertising vehicles have changed and grown, I've yet to see one completely replace the other. They just evolve. And that is what is happening now. Marketers big and small must take a serious look at each marketing vehicle available to them. Not to do so is quite frankly simply laziness. Never make assumptions!

But where do you really start. It begins with understanding who you are trying to reach. What platforms they are on and how they are using them. Then, make sure you understand the best practices for each vehicle you are looking at. Also, everything is changing and changing quickly. Commit to weekly self-education as well!