Social media Saturdays

Another inauguration!   I’m getting new administration fever. Earlier today, I started a Craiglist Scam Watch and now I’ve decided on a Saturday special dealing with social networking.

At first I thought, “me, write on social media?  what do I know?” And then I thought, I’m doing it.  I’ve formed some habits and practices.  I’ve had my ups and downs.  I’m on my learning curve. Why not me?  So here it goes..

Social media is overwhelming

I didn’t feel that way about blogging.  That I understood.  A website with chronologically organized content.   No, it was the Linkedin, the MySpace, the Facebook, the Digg, the Delicious, the Zoominfo, the Jigsaw and most of all, the Twitter.  What got me wasn’t really the number of different social media websites but the why???  Why should I use any of these?  Why should I use some but not others?  Do I really have to learn new paradigms at my age?

Social media is doing it

I decided not stress over the “why” once I realized lots of seemingly sane people were doing it.  I thought, I’ll just do it too. I started with Linkedin. I learned how to add my content, to aggressively connect with a range of people I’ve done business with and whom I want to stay connect too.  I learned how to download data from Linkedin to a contact manager, how to join groups, get alerts about what had changed on people’s profiles, how to ask and answer questions, link-up my blog and website. Suddenly as I did all this I realized the why.  Because it shows people you network with a lot of great information about who you are, who you know, your expertise and business interests that makes sense to maintain on Linkedin rather than your own site. Besides, the connection you have with others is objective validation of your worth beyond what you say about yourself on a website.

“Take-away”

Don’t expect to understand the value of social media from an article, book and conversation.  You need to do it and if you are in business, whatever business, you should do it because it maybe the most targeted and effective marketing you can do without spending much money.  Next time my experience (so far) with Twitter.