Today, I attended a social networking seminar presented by Nhat Pham (http://www.linkedin.com/in/nhatpham) with the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce on LinkedIn, Facebook for businesses and Twitter. Even though I have been LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/samuellittle) for about a year now, it was good to hear it from an expert like Nhat. The seminar was just today so I haven’t been able to use what I’ve learned…I’ll have more posts on that later. One thing that I did do immediately is put my LinkedIn web address link on my email signature.
My first impression from a marketing stand point is that users can target their market like never before! Focus on your target.
In LinkedIn there are many ways you can focus on what it is that you do best and present yourself as such on your LinkedIn pages over a broad network. You can research companies and individuals that you want to contact. As Nhat said, people will answer a LinkedIn email quicker than regular email…I think most likely because you’re apart of a common group.
As for Facebook for business, again…tailor your page to what your target market is. I don’t have much to say about this right now…I’ll post more later once I set up my Facebook page.
As for Twitter, Nhat said you can search anything…the whole Twitt network. That’s amazing! Search by keyword, demographics and the lot to see what people are talking about on any subject you want. I’m going to research this and see if it will be beneficial to me. I’ll get back to you on that as well.
Nhat spoke of a website called Ping.fm. A web site that allows you to update all of your social networks at once. This could be very helpful in getting your messages out but remember that most medias have a character count limit…so you need to know what that is before your words get cut off.
Another tool is Google Alerts. Nhat said that through Google Alerts you can be alerted when someone is searching for your name or company name. So when I’m alerted then what do I do with that information? I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. I think that’s very interesting.
This is all of the information I have for now from my seminar this morning…I’ll be back with more as I learn more.
One other thing that Nhat said which I thought was really funny. At the beginning of the meeting his “PC” was going so slow to pull up movies, links and web sites…he said and I quote…”I wish I had brought my Mac”. Why did he say that?…because Macs work. Sorry, I just had to mention that…I’m a 25 year + veteran of Apple MacIntosh products….from the MacPlus (1985) onward.
Update:
091909: I thought this was really funny…Nhat Pham said put your photo in your profile …nobody knows you as a lighthouse or as Garfield or as a cartoon. LOL. Show your FACE!
Remember people always say “It hard for me to remember names”. But it’s easy to remember FACES.
Nhat also mentioned Hi-Tech and Hi-Touch. Hi-Tech is using the online services to connect but we also need to remember that we need Hi-Touch as well to make those connections real. He said to go from Hi-Touch to Hi-Tech and back to Hi-Touch to form bonding relationships. Like, I was telling a colleague of mine… I Hi-Touch and Hi-Tech, then when I go to organization meetings or industry trade shows I use those events as a vehicle to get back to Hi-Touch.
I also want to thank John Tyler Community College (Chester) for allowing us to use their facility for the seminar.
Samuel Little is an advertising design specialist specializing in publication layout, design, production, printing and delivery with Samuel Little Graphic Design.