Which One Are You When It Comes To Social Media?

I must admit I am bit confused about social media use after doing a little bit of reading and researching for this post. Richard Branson recently wrote?in this blog about the surprising lethargy in the executive suite when it comes to engaging in social media. Then I saw a new Manta survey of 600 small business owners across the United States that finds 90% are actively engaged in social networking sites and 74% perceive social networking as valuable ? if not more valuable ? than networking in-person.?So which is it? And where do you fall in this spectrum?

Let?s start with the British billionaire business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group?of more than 400 companies.

?Anyone who thinks new technology isn?t going to keep changing the world has got their head in the sand,? posits Branson. ?We are seeing progress every day online, and businesses are doing their level best to keep up and get ahead.?However, when you get to the very top of companies, there is a surprising lethargy about using the online tools already available: social media. Embracing social media isn?t just a bit of fun, it is a vital way to communicate, keep your ear to the ground and improve your business.?

?Embracing social media isn?t just a bit of fun, it is a vital way to communicate, keep your ear to the ground and improve your business.?

For affirmation, Branson points to IBM?s 2012 Global CEO Study. It finds?that most CEOs are not engaging in online conversations. Only one of the more than 1,700 respondents had their own blog. Some are on LinkedIn, (though many accounts are not active), fewer are on Twitter, and even fewer still can be found on Facebook,?Google+ and elsewhere.

?The study indicated that within five years social media will be the number two way to engage with customers (after face-to-face personal interaction),? continues Branson in the blog. ?That?s a step in the right direction, but why wait five years? The internet will have changed all over again by then, and business is in danger of being left behind.

Richard Branson

Branson makes the point that it?s not just executives or management that should be engaged, but ?everyone within a company,? saying it can ?furnish a spirit of community.?

With my curiosity piqued, I went over to Virgin?s web site and ended up in the Careers section. One of the open reqs that caught my eye carried the title Master Storyteller for Virgin Unite, a non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group.

?We unite people and entrepreneurial ideas to reinvent how we live and work in the world to help make people?s lives better. Our aim is to do our bit to revolutionize the way businesses, government and the social sector work together ? driving business as a force for good.?

Okay, so money and mouth are indeed seemingly aligned at Branson?s businesses. He does believe in the value of stories, and the use of social media channels to connect with the outside world.

But that IBM CEO study surveys leaders of really big businesses. What about yours? Are you doing more than simply using LinkedIn to do some networking, prospecting and vetting?

Plenty of people are. More than 11 million businesses maintain personalized pages on Facebook, according to the company, which introduced them five years ago.

As the Los Angeles Times reports in this article, for those companies that aren?t Facebook-Twitter-Pinterest savvy, the U.S. Small Business Administration and other small-business organizations are holding workshops to get them up to speed.

?We know time is one of the most limited resources that small business owners have when they?re trying to run their small business,? said Dan Levy, director of global marketing solutions at Facebook, to the Los Angeles Times. But at the same time, ?word of mouth is the most trusted source of referrals, and we think that providing word of mouth at a much larger scale can be a really effective way to grow a business.?

?We know time is one of the most limited resources that small business owners have when they?re trying to run their small business.?

The whole idea of social media though isn?t just presenting a new channel for old-fashioned telling and selling. The conversation should include feedback from the company itself.

Are you checking in with clients, potential clients, and candidates via social media? Often? Do you find it hard to set dedicated social media time aside and still?focus on the other demands of running a business? Is it difficult to balance face time with screen time?

Tagged as: Blogs, Facebook, Google, Social Media, social media and staffing, social media networking, Twitter

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Which One Are You When It Comes To Social Media?
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