Posted by on Oct 15, 2009 in How To, My Business Adventures | 0 comments

You know I’ve started and stopped this post many times over the past year. I’m often amazed that some of my friends and clients have never used social networking applications, yet I hold back because I’m not sure I’m the best qualified person to advocate these things either. I’m just dabbling in it myself….

However, I DO want to introduce some of my reluctant clients to give these social networking trends a consideration….especially if you’re in business, err….to do business. Whenever I bring this up with some of my clients I hear responses like, “Naah, I just don’t get that stuff”, “That’s just for kids, I don’t have time for that”, or “That won’t work for me”

Let me explain. Unlike what the commercials and media say, social networking websites and services aren’t there just for kids.  Sure, I’m sure there are millions of kids out there tweeting about how they think so-and-so is cute or telling their friends to come to the next party at Susie’s house (Hmm, I don’t think I’ve ever met a person named Susie) Yes, there are tons of trivial information on these sites.

I’m noticing more and more business people using things like Facebook and Twitter for business purposes. A friend of mine who’s the CEO of the Hawaii Tech Development Center recently forced her staff to all use Twitter. Business “celebs” like Guy Kawasaki and Donald Trump have been heavily using social networking sources. Heck, I even see bank ads telling people to subscribe to their Twitter feeds.  Everyone is recognizing that this is the way marketing has been heading for the last few years.

Hear me out, there are good reasons why you should at least try checking it out:

HUGE reach right within the sweet spot

Everyone these days are noticing there’s a HUGE demographic of people using sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc that are between the ages of 35-54.

Facebook’s 35-54 year old demographic segment not only continued to grow the fastest, but it accelerated to a 276.4% growth rate over the past 6 months (source: iStrategyLabs)

Facebook alone has an active base of 300 million users. Twitter doesn’t have clear statistics, but it’s probably safe to say there are over 2 million users “tweeting” at any given time.

How much time are you spending doing to network meetings? How much money are you spending on traditional newspaper or yellow page advertising?  Here you have the potential to reach a huge audience for FREE and all the while sitting in the comfort of your own desk. AND you’re finding that key demographic of people who are the decision makers and the spenders.

It’s not just for trivia

Once you’ve spent a little time with these sites, you’ll soon find that it goes beyond just getting your business promoted. A survey done by an online marketing blog says that the among the top 10 reasons why people twitter are:

  • Sharing links to items of interest on your network (30%)
  • Networking for new contacts (22%)
  • Reinforcing current network contacts (16%)
  • Promoting specific content (7%)

So it’s a valuable resource. I recently stumbled across an interview with Ivanka Trump on the news the other day who claimed that she tweeted the drafting plans for the latest Trump project and received tons of feedback she found useful for future planning. It’s like having a pocket focus group.

Don’t just take my word for it, here are some quick articles I’ve found that talk about the trends.

A lot of these articles are Twitter focused, but there are unique characteristics to sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, etc. That’s a topic for another discussion.

I think if you’re investing the money with me to do your graphic design and advertising, you’re depending on me to help you find people. You should at least give social networking a look.

You’ll find me tweeting about my own nonsense here… (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)