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Is Social Media For Business Crap?

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Education & Training with Baby Boomer Networking

LinkedIn has a wonderful tool called Answers.  A quick overview of what  this is all about is the premise that someone can post a question and invite his/her network to respond.  Questions can also be shown to people who are not in the immediate network. 

One of the main benefits of Answers is that it allows you to learn about the different participants and help you determine whether these people are qualified to answer your questions or are they just trying to fill up space?  Another advantage of LinkedIn Anwers is that of allowing you to see the profile of the person that wrote it.  All you have to do is click on the particular answer and that will take you to the writer's profile.

Very recently, an individual on LinkedIn got an interesting discussion going that ended up with - at last count - 973 comments - and did they ever run the gambit!  So I thought it might be fun to try that same experiment here on ActiveRain.  His question was: Do you or do you not think that "Social Media for Business is Crap" - (his words not mine)?    If you believe Social Media is working for you - please share your reasons why - there are a lot of people that want to learn more about what the type is all about.  If you do not believe that Social Media is all that it is touted to be - why not?  This will also give me some ideas of what questions you are looking for to be answered and what areas people are interested in learning more about.

Julie Chapman
Julie Chapman Broker - Ormond Beach, FL
Daytona Beach Shores, Florida

Ellen,

Blogging on Active Rain and my outside blog has brought me business - I cannot say the same for Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, etc. but my focus is here.  Defining social networking which is not what I do on Active Rain - I spend more time promoting my area through Localism and increasing traffic to my website (a 700% increase since I joined Active Rain). 

Social netowkring is really going to be the "farming" that Realtors used to do and a way to stay in touch with clients as well as our SOI. 

Dec 30, 2009 05:13 AM
Ruth Vogt
Fairway Independent Mortgage, LLS. Equal Housing Opportunity. Regulated by the Division of Real Estate. - Colorado Springs, CO
719-592-0855 www.ReverseLoansInColorado.com

I completely agree with Julie, except that I cannot confirm the increase in website traffic that she has experienced. I also find the AR has one huge advantage over the others: it allows us to get to know someone we didn't know before vs being limited to family and friends, or friends of friends, and collegues, or linked to collegues of collegues. And really GET TO KNOW THEM by reading their posts, not just decide to follow them!

Dec 30, 2009 05:22 AM