Digital Biographer™

Of course, you may already be paying your staff to spend time on Xing, Linkedin, Facebook and other social networks, but not know it… or maybe you ban them from doing so. You’re making a mistake. I say: don’t be dumb - get them on there before it’s too late, and you get the boot for not doing your job.

Oh yes, I’m serious. I’m actually advocating an approach where you pay your staff to use facebook and similar social networking sites to network, and promote themselves, and your business, to the world. Because otherwise, they’ll not promote you - they’ll just promote themselves. What would you rather pay for?

You could explain it to them like this: —

1. You’re valuable to the organisation not just for what you do, but for how you relate to others, and who you relate to.
2. We know you have a personal opinion, personal life, and friends and colleagues outside work. You know we wouldn’t employ anyone who didn’t.
3. So we know you have a brain. We’re not going to say “don’t use social media in work time”, because we’re social people. We like friends, chat, buzz, news, even fun. Yeah. We know you’ll get your work done better if you get to be sociable. So go do it, but remember the work is primary!
4. Keep it structured, though, and use your time well. Remember that our customers might not want to see all of our family and party photos, but they will want to see some insight and ideas that you blog about and introduce them to. So be good. But be you.
5. Remember to keep your passwords and access secure - because it’s not our reputation we are concerned about - it’s yours. We want people to say “It must be great to work for those guys - they let you network and be yourself. Maybe their stuff is good too. I’ll get in touch with them.” We might even build in some blog business bonuses…

And now I could explain it to you like this:

1. If you’ve not already figured it out, the corporate website is becoming less relevant, and web marketing (and support) has spread off your domain and Google results.
2. Prospects trust the opinions of existing customers (who are “like them”) far more than marketers, and social media let these communities of practice assemble.
3. People with similiar interests are starting to link and connect to each other. Everywhere.
4. Many of my contacts and friends within Facebook are senior managers, directors, VPs, and CEOs—this is not child’s play.
5. Recent research indicated that the fastest growth segment in Facebook was 35+.
6. You can’t stop this It’s going to happen anyway - so you’re either on the highway driving, or trying to be a traffic cop without a car - in other words, roadkill.
7. There’s more. Lots more. Drop me a line and I’ll send you a link to an article that’ll give you plenty of food for thought. Email to david@also.cc

If you don’t address this now, you’ll have issues sooner, or later. Actually, it’s more like sooner, and you’ll be too late by the time HR wake up to it being another site to block. I can absolutely guarantee that. So get thinking….

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