One + May 2011 - (Page 43)

LinkedIn isn’t the “business” network, and Facebook isn’t the “friends/ personal” network. Which Social Networks? Allow me to clarify a common misunderstanding: LinkedIn isn’t the “business” network, and Facebook isn’t the “friends/personal” network. Disney has more than 100 million fans (one in every six users) on its various Facebook pages; and while LinkedIn is deﬁnitely a great place to run a community group for your organization, it’s not the only place. Twitter has fewer members (140 million reported users), and it’s a different creature than Facebook and LinkedIn. It’s lightweight, simple to use and serendipitous in the results you might get back for your communication efforts. (If I lost you on “simple to use,” we’ll get to that in future columns.) We haven’t even begun to discuss restrictive forums and private-label social networks. Those work just ﬁne, too, and may be just what your membership wants, as opposed to sharing information and ideas in “common” areas like Facebook. How to Social Network? We’ll talk about why YouTube is valuable (it’s the No. 2 search engine in the world) and discuss how to prospect for new members and use Twitter and Google searches to prep for meetings, build useful email marketing, utilize mobile technology (including apps and location-based tech) and more. If you read marketing and technology blogs, you see new tools every month. There are lots and lots of new, shiny things to play with out there. Explaining these is not my goal. Instead, I will help you work with tools that will be of use to you at a reasonable pace, instead of pushing tool after tool into your hands. Most of what we’ll talk about won’t be tech-y so much as ideas and advice on how technology has changed how you work on meetings and events. Remember: People First I work in the ﬁeld of “human business,” which is sustainable and relationship-based, where people are what matter most. We’ll talk about that often when we discuss how to promote things. Gone are the days of email blasts hammering people to sign up. Yes, you need to meet quota, but it’s not reached by hitting send every few days. Our goal is to promote the better aspects of how social media turn things into two-way streets, and we’ll talk about how going off-topic sometimes helps grow your business more than it hurts it. Contact me and help shape this column. I will answer your questions and track your ideas as we move forward. I’m @chrisbrogan (Twitter), Chrisbroganmedia (Facebook) and Chrisbrogan (LinkedIn). That’s how you and I will grow together. CHRIS BROGAN is president of Human Business Works, an education and tools company for small businesses. He is the co-author of New York Times bestseller Trust Agents, and he blogs at Chrisbrogan.com. Email him at linkedin@chrisbrogan.com. mpiweb.org 43 http://www.Chrisbrogan.com http://www.mpiweb.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of One + May 2011

One + May 2011
Contents
Energy of Many
Impressions
Meeting Design Goes Mobile
Picking Brains
Agenda
Ask the Experts
Thoughts+Leaders
Overheard
Art of Travel
Web Watch
Radical Co-creation
Engagement + Innovation = Wunderbar
Top Spots
Connections
Irrelevant
The Business of Being Social
Safety in Numbers
Ads, Sponsors and Patrons
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
It’s Getting Better All the Time
Blame It on Rio
Ride Free
Learning How the Brain Learns
Just Face It
Becoming Mindful with Your Meetings
Group Think
The Mesh Meeting
Your Community
Making a Difference
Until We Meet Again

One + May 2011