Friends, followers, and connections are some of the ways we connect with our social networks today. However, each social network has their own way of allowing us to connect or network with others.
Robin Wilson, author of chapter 7, describes Facebook as a way for "people to share stuff with their friends," by allowing them to share thinks in many different ways. Those different ways being a personal profile, brand pages/profiles, groups, and places. He also goes into how brands can use Facebook to build themselves up.
Wilson says that Facebook can enable brands to do the following:
- Build Communities: can use 'Likes' to gain fans based on interests and demographics
- Engage with Fans: brands can publish interesting things to gain their communities attention and engage in two-way communication
- Amplify your Message: Engagement with fans is more powerful than regular advertising
- Socially Enable your Business: Companies can enable people to share actions they take on their website directly with their Facebook
- Sell your Products and Services: Companies can connect their website or Facebook page with a site like Payvment for online shopping
Twitter, like Facebook, has different ways to connect or socialize with people. In a journalism light, Twitter can be used in place of newswires and for those of us who are celebrity junkies it allows us to follow what is going on with them. It also allows us, access to up-to-date news and another way to communicate with friends. Businesses can use Twitter to see what consumers are saying and gives companies the chance to interact with them.
Lastly, LinkedIn is often seen as the professional of the three. It encourages members to engage with companies and "sells itself as a platform to connect and reconnect." This network also allows users to belong to networks like your school, employers, professional bodies, etc. For example, I am connected with the mayor of my hometown, who is also an ONU alum and a few of the people I worked with in the past. In having these connections, I have have a support system on what I am sharing with the business world because they can endorse the skills I have listed.
In short all three allow businesses and individuals to promote themselves. I think Aggie gave us the perfect example of how to use the sites in our favor when she told us she has a personal and professional Facebook page. We just have to learn the correct way to use them.
Be smart in promoting yourselves online my friends.
-Kaila
I think you made a great point in showing that all of these forms of social media allow you to socialize, but all in different ways. I personally have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a few other forms of social media and I use no two the same.
ReplyDeleteFacebook is primarily for pictures and members of my extended family to keep in touch with what I have going on in my life. I also use it to stay in touch with friends from high school and college friends I may not see as often as I would like and to keep up to date with different events going on in my area.
Twitter is my favorite form of social media, I love that I can get updates from my favorite racing teams, friends and news all in one place. I love how short the posts are and even enjoy the subtweets that people put up at times.
LinkedIn, however, is one that I may not be as familiar with. I do endorse people and create my network, but I consider it a professional extension of myself that I need to limit my interactions on. If I had more experience with it I may think differently, but as of now I don't really know what to do with it.
Being smart online is something that is increasingly important, especially when professional and personal lives cross over more and more. Knowing how to appropriately use all of these forms of social media is key to having a comfortable online life.