I enjoy blogs and one of my favorite sites is operated by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff professionally known as The Blog Squad.
Their latest post addresses the value of social networking sites. If you are not exactly sure what social networking sites are look at Facebook, Twitter, My Space, You Tube for starters. I read that Facebook gets more traffic per month than Google and has an estimated value of $15 billion. Facebook started in 2004 so in less than four years having an estimated value of $15 billion is a great success story.
Valuation is not the important topic today except that it is an indicator of worldwide demographic trends of people connecting with people. If you spend any time at all on Facebook, MySpace or the other popular sites you will quickly understand that people are opening their previously private lives to the world. Of course there are text profiles, website links and more. What is really interesting are the pictures being posted and personal videos. Just yesterday John Reese, a very successful business professional and expert in the field of Internet marketing whose work I value tremendously, published pictures of his home inside and out. John has been very private about his personal life but is now cracking the door open on social networking sites.
Books and courses are being written about the value of social networking sites. However Patsi from The Blog Squad suggests this may all be a waste of time. She writes in part
“Last year at BlogHer Business, we heard about
Twitter. Just for fun, we both set up an account.
But it never caught on, or at least it didn’t for
me. Then I go over to Biz Tips Blog and find out
Denise has been sucked in. Even Leesa Barns of
Podcasting fame is in love with Twitter. Again,
I’m not convinced.
Curmudgeon and introvert, I’m now accepting new
friends into Facebook even though I’m not
convinced yet it will bring big business rewards.
So Denise and I are in two camps on these new
social sites for now: She’s convinced it’s worth
it, I’m still skeptical and am waiting to see how
it all shakes out.”
Patsi raises the question that has been in a lot of people’s mind. Is time on social networks time well spent? My answer is a resounding yes it is time well spent. The reason for my answer is likely to surprise you. In Part 2 of my response, I open the doors as to why social networking is very valuable. If you want this delivered right to your email you will subscribe to my blog
Until then consider this “The significant problems that we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. ” Albert Einstein
Steve Pohlit, Business Development Consultant and Coach
http://www.stevereports.com