Millenium Marketer

A fellow MIIS alumnus invited me to participate in an editing session on how to use LinkedIn for networking purposes and I was amazed to learn that some people still think that social networking, as in LinkedIn, is still a strange, mysterious thing that teenagers do.

Here is an idea that could help put this into perspective: LinkedIn is the virtual extension of your physical address book.

When you think of social networking in this light, then it suddenly isn’t so daunting. Also, the integration of physical, offline networking and social networking online is extremely important, as David Rich of George P. Johnson suggested in an interview with MM.

As a response, here is a quick primer on networking etiquette, and how social networking can be used within this framework.

Do:
1) Put your mug up on your profile. Two reasons for doing so: one, you want people to know your face, and two, mobile phones are on the rise, and many phones offer a feature to add a person’s picture so that it shows up with the phone call.

2) Foster relationships with your network. Audit your network on a quarterly basis and pick out 10 or more people you want to help or reach out to. It will take a few hours to reach all 10, but it is a good time investment. If you’re not sure what to say when you call, try to ask good questions and keep the conversation casual, upbeat and friendly. The question “What are you doing now?” is a good one to keep the flow. I have learned over the years that it is better to network proactively than to suddenly call someone when you are in a bind.

This is also a good time to think if you have any friends, colleagues or family that you know are on LinkedIN but you have just assumed are part of your network already. Since LinkedIn works in function of degrees of people, adding in people that you see often can open new doors for other connections.

3) Find other ways to network. There are many social networks out there on the web and offline, and they may take less obvious forms. For example, a friend of mind is very interested in photography and he participates in online forums on a photography website. This has been helpful to create other relationships beyond what is typical to his business and area of specialty. As Martin Gladwell of the Tipping Point indicates, good connectors are the ones that move in many social circles.

Don’t:
1) Say things arbitrarily. It’s better to ask questions intelligently and write intelligently to maintain a strong position. I admit it, I am guilty of this sometimes and so are many others who leave comments on blogs. It’s tempting to say the first thing that comes to mind on the web, because it can feel anonymous (See Do tip #1).

2) Do NOT spam your network. Of course, you wouldn’t do this intentionally. However, if you have done your homework, you should know what is important to each person, or have a general sense of what their interests are. If you can, maintain good notes and keep your memory fresh. I sometimes get invitations to music shows, but in general, I don’t spend energy and effort going to music shows. If you knew me well, you would understand that I prefer to go outside, enjoy the day and spend a weekend evening recovering from a challenging hike. That said, it’s good to get to know your network and what interests them, because this will strengthen your relationships overall.

3) Don’t forget that the etiquette and rules of networking online are no different from the non-virtual world. The golden rule is: anything you wouldn’t do in real life is not a queue to act differently anonymously online.

The power of blogs and commenting. A comment on Beth Kanter’s blog last week yielded a couple of new conversations with other bloggers.

Now the Tatiana Senior Project has reached my virtual doorstep via my Facebook mailbox.

Hi, Clara!
How are you?

My name is Tatiana and I am currently a senior at the University of Tampa. You have recently commented on Beth Kanter’s blog post that featured my project on the impact of the internet marketing of social media and its users.

You have a very interesting and unique perspective on this issue and I was wondering if your could share it on my blog and contribute to my project.

http://tatianatugbaevafinalproject.blogspot.com/

Tatiana’s personal branding strategy is impressive. She has a regular blog and a project that communicate the online phenomenon about individual self-marketing, thoughtful research and writing.

Young people today, like Tatiana, are very cognizant of the web, and you could even say they definitely use it more intelligently than those of us who were weaned off of early AOL IM, chat or even intra net BBS green-type systems with MS DOS commands. I used to think I was of the privileged technology generation, able to code simple HTML on Geocities, but now it’s really changing beyond that.

I would even go so far as to say that Tatiana’s peers and college students are smarter about using the web than those of us who got used to the web tech in the 90s.

The differences between Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Me
In my peer group, some have heard of wikis, but most think of Wikipedia. Others may have a Facebook profile but avoid it like the plague because of spammy apps. Some use IM to communicate incessantly, but others don’t. This is the group most likely to possess “information fatigue,” because generically speaking, I’ve observed that we don’t digest information as well as the younger crowd.

Too much internet information doesn’t sit well with us, because we did grow up with our parents reading the local brand newspapers and magazines. My dad has stacks of the National Geographic and the San Jose Mercury that he refused to throw away.

We’re a little bit harder to reach online. I still have friends who are very active on LiveJournal with very private profiles available to only a select few, while I prefer Facebook or IM. (More on social media hierarchies and usage soon.)

How Internet Media and Professional Profiles has Evolved
Gone are the days when profile surveys are sent in the form of email-chain-letter-forwards between friends. This evolved to LinkedIn professional profiles, then of course there were HR crises on MySpace where your boss finds your drunken pictures (thus giving social networks a bad rep). Now all that has moved outwards where some are pro-actively taking a stand on which pages show up on Google through blogs and the form of online portfolios. Now we’ve almost made the full circle to Geocities homepages, but instead of focusing on our hobbies or interest, like dogs, or random pictures and animated gifs, the web 2.0 era has a strong interest in aesthetic, design and professional image.

This means we’ve got a powerful advertising vehicle on our hands that could be tackled…or not. The questions to ask are: Which Audience and Which Type of Media?

Wow…not much else to say that it’s been said that the Sarkozy divorce was one of the more open stories of human relationship in politics.

On Yahoo! Buzz today, rumor has it that Sarkozy has a mistress that may have had something to do with the divorce.

It just goes to show that everyone is human and people like stories about human conflict, especially if they can relate. Not sure how this would affect Sarkozy’s rating as president though…