Social Networking: A One-Minute Primer

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This is the overview of the talk I gave at the Orange County IABC event last week. It’s a pretty good primer on Social Media, if I do say so myself. Brief being better, here’s all you need to know. I’d be interested, as always, in your thoughts.

a) Networking is something you should be doing always. Don’t rely on “social networking” to get out of meeting new people the old fashioned way.

b) Friendster is dead, when I get a friendster request now, I think, “oh, that’s just… special.”

c) Linked in is for recruiters.

d) myspace is being dropped by everyone like a bad habit. I don’t need to have 20,000,000 friends that I don’t know. I get enough of that in NYC.

e) Facebook has the right amount of balance between professionalism and fun.

e1) Sending a professional contact a virtual beer on Facebook is ok. Biting a professional contact with the vampires widget is not.

e2) If you wouldn’t do it in person, don’t do it on Facebook.

f) Again – Facebook doesn’t replace traditional networking. It only complements it. And the only way it can complement traditional networking is if you’re doing traditional networking in the first place.

f1) Traditional networking doesn’t mean “going to a networking event once a month.” It means you should treat every new person you meet as a potential contact.

  f1a) The goal with that new potential contact, though, should be to help THEM, not to GET help from them. Help them, and they’ll be there for you when you need it.

G) Finally, if you’re lactose intolerant, don’t spend the first 20 minutes of the conference eating from the cheese table before going on to speak, or it will be the longest hour in front of a lectern in your LIFE.

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