As an Entrepreneur, Do I Need Twitter? Ryze? LinkedIn? Talkbiznow?
Posted: Saturday, February 28, 2009
by Jeff Brown
Inner Projection
There are literally hundreds of social networking sites. Of the major websites, there are over 150 from Advogato , Amie Street, ANobi to Xt 3, Yelp, Inc., Youmeo . But for the entrepreneur looking to promote her business, there are a handful of popular sites: Twitter, LinkedIn , Selfgrowth , Ryze , Spoke, Talkbiznow , even Yelp, Inc. Some even use Facebook and MySpace , but things have changed since people used both freely to promote. Now you have to be a little more careful and not so obvious or else you'll get bumped.
But that's not the point of this article, let's get to the question at hand. Let's look at an example.
Twitter, a microblogging site, is merely shorthand for blogging . You follow or are followed people, and when you see something that requires a personal message, you may do so. For example, maybe you're following several people in your field of business and you see something of interest, maybe a seminar, product launch, business strategy, etc. and you respond. So you can get business insight or maybe develop relationships that will aid you in your business endeavors.
But how much time should you spend Twitter- ing ? or Talkbiznow - ing ? or Ryze - ing ? and so on. That is the key question. If you have signed up with three, four, five or more social sites, the time required to keep up with posting, commenting, and responding may take from valuable marketing time. And as an entrepreneur, business owner, we all know that this is where the majority of time needs to be spent.
My suggestion is that unless you know what you're doing or know someone who knows what they are doing in regards to promoting through social networking sites, it's important too not spend or waste too much time getting to learn the site's functions, posting, commenting, and responding, unless you know the actual outcomes or effects of all your work. Don't spend weeks or months experimenting to discover whether or not it's profitable or if your ROI is substantial only find out that you've been wasting your time. That is, unless you have the time or the money to hire someone else to experiment. You may just want to invest in a social networking guru temporarily until you get the hang of it all and you can handle it yourself or deligate the task.
I speak from personal experience. I've joined certain sites in hopes of promoting only to find that it's people promoting to people who are promoting to people and no one's buying. Certainly, it's fine to develop relationships for social reasons and even for business reasons. But if your focus is profit and it's not profitable then you need to seek other strategies.
Of course, it's essential to diversify your marketing and promoting, but if you find yourself working a great deal of time using a promoting device that is only bringing in a small fraction of business, and this is what can happen with social networking sites, then you need to give it up or hire someone who can get the device working a solid ROI for you.
Bottom line, don't just do something because it's popular. Slavery and the oppression of women were popular ideas in the U.S. at one time. Also consider the great motivational speaker Earl Nightingale said that if you want to be successful and don't know what to do, just look at what everyone else is doing and do something else. You'll eventually figure it out.
Sounds over simplistic, but the sentiment is right. So often the tried and true is just that and has been done to death. Everyone's done it so much it is no longer effective. Those who are the movers and shakers often find that unique angle, slant, idea, thought, that skyrockets them to success. Not that you shouldn't use social networking, just use your head in seeing beyond the popular to greater possibilities.
And who knows, maybe your success will come from ignoring social networking all together. There are many of the successful who are not using popular devices. Just keep your eyes and ears open to the drummer who may just be drumming a different rhythm.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Great article, and informative Jeff. I agree with you about spending so much time with commenting, reading, and writing, and does it really do anything for you profit wise or even exposure wise, allot of these sites sometimes become really socialized, only on a personal level. I have belonged to sites, whereas my goal is to become a great columnist. Well...I decided that the best way to do that is to go to school for creative writting...there , I will be able to concentrate on the only thing I want to do, and that is to write!!!! But your article is chuck full of great helpful tips on the how too's of exposing your business and yourself...Great article and informative, good read, your friend in pen, and fan.....Gary.....Gary,
Get on with your bad self ;=) Yes, getting the nuts and bolts of writing down through a few classes is a great idea. You are certainly gifted and motivated in that area. I've always been a writer (poetry, short-stories, novels, humor for myself and other comics), but I knew that if I wanted to take it up a notch or two or three that I'd have to go back to school, and for me, not only take classes but go into teaching. Teaching is certainly the best way to learn. So I got my BA and MA in creative writing / verse. Best thing I ever did. Now my writing is super strong and can do no wrong . . . okay, I got carried away ;=) But I think you're certainly moving in the right direction. And yes, it appears that these "social networks" are more social than useful or practical. If we spend too much time Twetering, Tagging (just got tagged today, realizing I had signed up for an account I'd forgotten about), or Facebooking we may end up ignoring real people like our family, friends, and neighbors, those we can reach out and touch in reality, not through any "virtual" means. Good luck in all your efforts and God bless. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, too.
Jeff,Thanks for your informative article. Being that I am 24 yrs old, I have been active on a social networking forum called YoungEntrepreneur. com and have met some great like-minded individuals. They already have almost 50,000 members and everyone helps each other!Mark,
That's what it's all about. My personal business coach has a forum and that's where I get my insights and help. As you probably know, it's almost impossible to be successful alone. Thanks for stopping by.Hey Mark!
I'm Jean with the Little Green Money Machine! I was wondering if you were trying to contact us.. we received a message from a Mark Ruthers in the past week and were not left with any contact back info. Please call us from the phone number on our website. We look forward to hearing back from you!
I have seen so many business owners ignore the social web sphere, but those that pay attention to it are paying attention to the fact that a community can be built locally, but also on the web. That's the key difference.Yes, ignoring, not so good. Learning to use it? takes a bit of homework. How to use it? takes patience. Does it work in today's I'm-so-ignoring-interruption-advertising world? Priceless.
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