Social Media Connection: The Pros & Cons of Doing Business Online
Brand strategist Hajj Flemings is the founder of Brand Camp University, which runs one of the premier personal branding conferences in the Midwest, and the author of The Brand YU Life: Re-thinking Who You Are Through Personal Brand Management, a Fast Company magazine 2008 Readers Choice Business Book of the Year. As the program ambassador for the Michigan Tech Online MBA program, Hajj recruits and manages the social media content for the program. He has been featured on Fox 2 News, ESPN.com and BusinessWeek.com and travels nationally speaking on business and personal branding, social media and career development. In his own words, Flemings shares how he uses social media to achieve his business objectives.--Alfred Edmond Jr. There is a tremendous amount of value in social networks, but most people get caught up in trying to get as many people to follow them as they can without a clear strategy on why and what they will do with them once they have them. I am active online for the following six reasons: 1) build brand awareness, 2) engage potential customers, 3) build my network before I need it, 4) listen to others, 5) share my ideas and 6) to demonstrate expertise in my niche.
Brand strategist Hajj Flemings is the founder of Brand Camp University, which runs one of the premier personal branding conferences in the Midwest, and the author of The Brand YU Life: Re-thinking Who You Are Through Personal Brand Management, a Fast Company magazine 2008 Readers Choice Business Book of the Year. As the program ambassador for the Michigan Tech Online MBA program, Hajj recruits and manages the social media content for the program. He has been featured on Fox 2 News, ESPN.com and BusinessWeek.com and travels nationally speaking on business and personal branding, social media and career development. In his own words, Flemings shares how he uses social media to achieve his business objectives.--Alfred Edmond Jr. There is a tremendous amount of value in social networks, but most people get caught up in trying to get as many people to follow them as they can without a clear strategy on why and what they will do with them once they have them. I am active online for the following six reasons: 1) build brand awareness, 2) engage potential customers, 3) build my network before I need it, 4) listen to others, 5) share my ideas and 6) to demonstrate expertise in my niche. more
Twitter is a great business platform that enables people to connect with a geographically dispersed community of thinkers and engage in conversations that are relevant to their business. I use Twitter as one of my top online listening tools, as a news source, and to share ideas that can spread more easily and faster than other social networks. I also use it to networking with people I meet when I travel to new markets. Pro: Twitter forces you to re-think how you communicate, [as you must] effectively communicate ideas in 140 characters or less. The ability to connect directly with customers and brands without having long established relationships to is another of its greatest assets. Con: You only have 120 characters to communicate your ideas if you want people to share (re-tweet) them. more
Facebookis more than a way to just catch up with old high school or college friends. Most companies are using social networks like Facebook similarly to how lenders use credit reports and FICO scores to identify behavior patterns. I use it as a background check to get additional data points on a person I may do business with. Pro: Easy to build deep connections. Great third-party applications. Con: Easy to mismanage personal information in a public domain.more
LinkedIn is a professional social network that all business people and brands should consider having a presence in. It's a great referral network and can assist you in building a strong online personal brand. I use it for reference checks and to get additional background information about people prior to meeting or doing business with them. * Pro: Great source for job/career search. * Con: Requires more engagement than Twitter and Facebook to get the true benefits. Foursquare – In a global economy, the opportunity to connect in local markets is critical to the success of start-ups, entrepreneurs and even major brands. This is one of the principles we emphasize at our annual Brand Camp (pictured). Foursquare is a location based service that allows you to share your location with your network. I believe local based social networks are at the heart of creating unique experiences in local markets with local business owners. I use Foursquare to identify unique spots to support and to identify people within my network that are at key events when I check-in at a location. I also use it as a lifestyle app; based on my check-in history I am communicating the places that I support, the foods that I eat and events that I attend. Pro: You can identify cool businesses to support. Con: Status updates communicate when you are not at home. Only check-in at locations and times that you feel comfortable more
Skype– Most people know Skype as a free video calling service without realizing that it's a social network with true business potential. The strength of Skype is that it enables virtual collaboration. It's a great communication tool to record conversations in audio or video formats for audio podcasts or video blog posts. I use Skype to record video interviews with business executives and personalities outside of my local market. Pro: Easy to record video but does require a third-party app to record conversations (i.e. Call Recorder). Con: Video quality is decent but not great because it is free. Pro: Great source for job/career search. Con: Requires more engagement than Twitter and Facebook to get the true benefits.Hootsuite– Third-party app to manage Twitter and other social network profiles in one location and on the go. (Available as both a desktop version and as a mobile app). Dropbox – You have probably heard the term cloud computing. I spend a lot of time on the go with mobile devices like my iPad and iPhone. Dropbox allows me to access large files and share them with business partners. Google Alerts– Google has an entire suite of free services if you establish a profile and one of the key offerings is Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a notification system that allows you to track keywords and is best known as an online reputation management system. Using your name as a keyword allows you to monitor what is being said about you and your brand online. You can set-up the system to notify you via email or through Google Reader for keywords you have identified. more
Evernote – Evernote (pictured) is a great way to take notes and access them from any mobile device. You can capture photos, web pages, and type notes. Evernote is my notetaking app of choice. This app allows you to organize your thoughts, ideas, and content that you can access anywhere anytime. more
Foursquare – In a global economy, the opportunity to connect in local markets is critical to the success of start-ups, entrepreneurs and even major brands. This is one of the principles we emphasize at our annual Brand Camp (pictured). Foursquare is a location based service that allows you to share your location with your network. I believe local based social networks are at the heart of creating unique experiences in local markets with local business owners. I use Foursquare to identify unique spots to support and to identify people within my network that are at key events when I check-in at a location. I also use it as a lifestyle app; based on my check-in history I am communicating the places that I support, the foods that I eat and events that I attend. more
LinkedInis a professional social network that all business people and brands should consider having a presence in. It's a great referral network and can assist you in building a strong online personal brand. I use it for reference checks and to get additional background information about people prior to meeting or doing business with them. more
Slideshare is the top presentation sharing social network. It is YouTube for your documents and presentations and is the best way to get your slides on the Web to be shared. You can embed presentations into a blog post and sync them with audio. Slideshare has a strong community and is a great resource in developing slide presentations. As a speaker and presenter it allows me to share presentations that I have given to communicate my presentation style. Slideshare is a great tool to tell visual stories with your resume or projects that you are working on. It's available as an app in most social networks. There is a long list of social media tools that you can use but I have picked the following four tools because they have increased my productivity and allow me to access information on the go: more