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Online Social Networking | Worth the time? | or just Spam
Everybody is into the online social networking sites right now, I get it. Its free! BUT is it worth all of the time it takes? In the end, is it just good ole spam repackaged?
Advantages:
- free to post.
- free advertisement.
- say all you won’t to about your business.
- make contacts with others in your industry.
- find new clients.
- get your name out there.
- get people to call or view your site.
Disadvantages:
- free to post.
- free advertisement.
- you along with every-one’s become overwhelmed with so much business information that it all runs together.
- constantly being contacted or updated about, something new in your industry, over & over & over again.
- do you really find new clients?
- does anyone really know your name?
- does anyone even read your updates, view your site or call you for work?
We have dropped most of the social networks we where a part of, like most people we thought we had seen an advantage to marketing our services through a free social media. Why wouldn’t this be perfect, after all its free? We would have the opportunity to network with others in our industry, others who are like minded, this presented a great opportunity for all of us to be of benefit to each other. It is now my belief that social networks sites should be for socializing only. After months of networking on the myspaces, facebooks & twitters of the online world and believe me we where like so many others out there we where on a lot of networks. Some every one’s heard of and some no-ones heard of, my point is I’m not picking on the MySpace, Facebook or Twitter I just used them as a general example.
This is what we found out,
Everyone is there this is great but is it? Networking on these online social networking sites is different. You see if you try to network with only people in your industry or others who maybe interested in your product, you will be disappointed. Even if you do like the old days of networking, with others who may know someone who may be interested in your service, you will most likely be disappointed. Its different, we used to call that networking but today the end results is you are “networking” with others who are there just to promote their business or product NOT to network. In the old school way of networking you spoke person to person. You and the other persons would take the time to speak about your services or products and actually hear what they where saying. Most of the time you along with the others would take that information and used it to make another contact or use it to help close a deal with someone else. Having that contact would be a benefit. You know, someone would say I need this or that and you would say Hey “I know a guy” for the most part those days are gone, at-least if you are hoping for that type of result out of the social online networking.
Think about it,
Many people want & think the more ”friends” I have or “followers” I have the more popular I am and the more likely I am of getting more business. They think this is really working for me. Think about it, if you have or someone who is following you has 500 or 5,000 “friends” or “followers” and if each one of them sends you 1 too 7 “tweets”, “new postings” “direct messages” or “bulletins” a day, do you read them all? Can they all be read in one sitting? Now add your 1 too 7 “tweets”, “new postings”, “direct messages” or “bulletins” to the mix. Do you really think everyone is networking? To network there must be some sort of interaction, a basic understanding of what each of us have to offer. With this much action no-body’s has time to read all, if any information being thrown there way. I know, I tried to read each and every message, post, bulletin & tweet that came my way, I thought that is what I was supposed to do, I thought I was networking. My junk e-mail box would be overflowing, with reminders that someone has just “sent me a message”. I got to a point where I was unable to read all or even half, when I join a new network, I became very selective on who I accepted as my “friends” but still became overwhelmed.
The Test,
I even responded to some/many with no response in return, that tells me they are so focused on “posting their information” they don’t have time to respond to any inquires. I decide to do a test, I had never sent any “direct messages” or “bulletins” to just my “friends” or “followers” before, I was to busy reading theirs! So I sent various test questions and free membership offers, even free banner advertising offers I even went as far as to say This is a test to see if you are reading this, if yes please respond as yes I read this. If you don’t reply I am going to delete you from my “friends” list. I got 1 or 2 replies. When I responded to other people I got 1 or 2 replies, that’s a terrible ratio.
Back when forums where all the craze,
Originally when everyone used talk forums, chat forums, or just posting forums in general, people at-least had a chance to build a little bit of a relationship, they got to know a little about each other and from there they would network. It was very time consuming getting to know others, talking about their interest, their concerns, that had nothing to do with your business and with some forums you would forget your original goal for joining the forum was to market your services. You had built a relationship with the members of the board, you where part of the group. You found yourself getting mad when a “spammer” would show his face on the board, after all everyone NOT just some but ALL of the members of the board is your friend. You would think to yourself where not here just to promote our business, you damn spammer go somewhere else. Now that we have all of these social networking sites, some say the talk forums are dead and we don’t have time to build relationships with anyone anymore. Instead of making new contacts on the open talk forums, emailing, Instant messaging and talking on the phone we set our networks to private, we decide who our friends are, we send each other goofy pictures and no-one else can see. We almost never genuinely meet anyone new.
The truth is,
Most people have two or more social network accounts. One is just for their, true real friends, and faimly. The other is their business account for ”networking”. The truth is, we have all turn into that “damn spammer”. Most of us have corrupted or misused the social networking sites. In some sense they are just big giant spam sites and on the other section is set to private. They are like the wild west, out in the open nothing but one company or person spamming another, constantly with little valuable results. When people really want something they “Google it” and/or end up at a site like ours (MyContractorlist.com) or some other speciality site where the consumer can still make their own informed decision. You see like the wild west, all of the good and decent folk the people who just want to socialize only. They don’t have a business motivation to interact with each other, most of them where friends before they ever got online. These people don’t randomly select everyone to be their “friend”, they don’t spend their time trying to sell each other something they didn’t ask about, the truth is they already know what each other has to offer. These people don’t send each other information on “how to make millions overnight” updates every damn hour or two. These people just want to keep in touch and play the next new and exciting game available to them via their social network or take the newest quiz to see who they look like or what ever. These people, if they do pay attention to us it is very, very little most of the time they just ignore us, we are view as the price you have to pay to use a free service.
In the end,
In the old days this type of “networking” would be called spam but now its called social networking.
- In the end most will “Google” for what ever they really want.
- Like the old saying goes “Sometime you get what you pay for”
- Everything comes full circle | Talk Forums will make a come back.
- Spam networking – I mean social networking sites will continue on, with people having high hopes…
- If you are viewed as competition, YOU may get flagged…
- Like Craig’s List, You get what you pay for…
- Just because its FREE dosn’t always mean it has value.
Tell me what you think am I right or is it just me and the so very many others I personally know who have been down this road and did some of the same test as I have mention above and received similar results.
I agree 100%
Online Social Networking | Worth the time? | or just Spam http://bit.ly/GvWP4