Southeast Michigan companies are tweeting about Facebook, fitting into MySpace, and seeing who's LinkedIn. These Web 2.0, or social media, sites offer a way for area professionals to work the room from the comfort of their desks – virtual nametags, business cards, and portfolios included.
We've pretty much passed on paper communications, and it’s no longer enough for companies to wave one-size-fits-all websites and ads (so Web 1.0!) in your face. Now people are joining social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to introduce their business establishments to their contacts to their neighbors to their friends to their clients…you get the gist.
Terry Bean, chief networking officer of Networked, Inc. and founder of Motor City Connect, explains why organizations are merging screen time with face time. "I think if companies are trying to reach a certain demographic, and let's call that somewhat sophisticated, from ages 18-55, they're using [social media]… You've got to go and communicate your message where your customers are. We now live in a Tivo world. People aren't watching commercials anymore... We're time-shifting every piece of our lives."
Follow my words
That time is increasingly devoted to online profiles, networks, groups, friends, fans, and followers. Twitter, a short messaging service for individuals and companies, offers blogging in brief (posts, or "tweets" are limited to 140 characters). As of the end of February, the site had nearly 10 million users, according to comScore. It's popular because it's easy to use. Just answer this: "What are you doing?" Readers who get your point can sign up to receive (follow) your updates. Hence, build your network by spreading the good word – and see who's following whom.
Follow these: Surfing Facebook for friendly faces among its 175 million members, finding common bonds with more than 640,000 people in its Detroit network… Hoping to connect with LinkedIn's 35 million professionals around the globe; or at least the 336,000 in greater Detroit.
Teach me to tweet
Post this: Now universities (ground zero for Facebook) and associations are hosting meetings of the virtual mind. Automation Alley's recent sold-out Social Media Bootcamp examined how companies use these tools to grow their businesses. And the University of Michigan has a program this June: "Making Social Computing Work in Your Enterprise" that will cover the deployment of Web 2.0 strategies for business.
This semester, Michigan State University (MSU) is offering a brand-new graduate-level advertising class: "The New Media Driver's License", which gives an overview of social media applications and strategies for their use. Derek Mehraban, CEO of the Ann Arbor-based Ingenex Digital Marketing agency, and of Social Harbor, which builds online profiles for businesses, teaches the course, which – of course – has its own fan page on Facebook. Many of the students are professionals and top executives, Mehraban says. The class will be offered again this summer and fall.
"It's not just social media, it's an attitude of 'Is our company being open and transparent with our customers?' " Mehraban explains. "Are we letting them in, are we letting them see beyond our logo, beyond our walls? That's where the conversation is taking place."
Virtual socializing
Bean has built an empire out of online conversations. He runs Networked, Inc., a Bloomfield Township-based business development company that trains clients in face-to-face and online networking, and Motor City Connect, an Internet-based business networking group with over 3,000 members (who also meet in-person). He's on Facebook. He twitters @terrybean. And he's clearly LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/terrybean, with nearly 2,900 connections – one of the site's top 20 most connected people in metro Detroit, he believes.
"[LinkedIn] is the de facto business site now. You need to be on it," Bean advises. "Google loves social media… You Google your name and I am willing to bet that your LinkedIn profile is in the first five responses… It's that relevant. If Google trusts it, it's probably relevant for your business as well."
Right on! But to avoid shaking hands with air-kissers and name-droppers, let's focus on those who can really help your bottom line. As a check on the integrity of its users, once someone links up with over 500 others, the site will no longer reveal the number of connections one has in excess of that figure – and it's imposed a limit of 30,000 for any one person.
"You'd have trouble fitting them all into the Palace of Auburn Hills!" he laughs.
He believes Facebook (which has a "Social Media for Business" group that's drawn almost 39,000 members) could eventually eclipse LinkedIn as the premier business networking application, due to the ease of using it to share events and its portability to mobile phones.
Creative Breakthroughs, Inc., a technology and information security consulting company based in Troy, has a Facebook network for its 50 employees. The firm plans to create a Facebook group page and a CBI Twitter personality, says VP of Business Development Dave Glenn, who is linked in and twitters at @daveglenn.
Enabling human relationships is the most important aspect of social media for the firm, Glenn says. "…So when you tie into things like Facebook, all of a sudden it's a whole lot easier to know what your customers' families look like, or what your vendor partners did on their last vacation. You can bring personal conversation into face-to-face business conversation in a different way than you were able to before."
Reading the leaves
Check your in-box for a Facebook invitation – to talk over tea. For Ono Tea, a Novi-based purveyor of loose-leaf teas, social media is all-natural. "People are so desensitized to advertisements today, so you must show that you have a passion for your business. Having a passion means that you are sharing what you love to your friends and clients and educating them on your products and beliefs," says CEO and co-founder Phuong Le, aka The Tea Chick.
Both Phuong and her brother, Viet, the company's chief creative officer, are very active users of Facebook. It shows their real side, and they post blog and company updates there as well, Viet says. "With the viral-type nature that social networking brings, it has become an important asset to any company."
Ono Tea's interactive online presence has greatly benefited their business, Phuong, a certified tea sommelier, says. A follower of her "Healthy Living with Tea" blogs on MySpace became a director at the Grand Wailea Resort on Maui, which later began carrying their products.
And now my last post: Relax, have a drink, and surf the virtual beach with your prospects, colleagues, suppliers – get the drift? "Your life shouldn't be compartmentalized," Bean says. "So many people run around, 'I've got this line in the sand for this and this line in the sand for that.' I'm like 'Dude, it's all the same, regardless of what I'm doing.' Be one. That makes it very, very easy."
Tanya Muzumdar is a freelance writer and Assistant Editor at Metromode. Her previous article was The Metro Detroit Touch.Photos:
Derek Mehraban takes a break from a Tweetup
Terry Bean, chief networking officer of Networked, Inc.
Social Networking workshop
CEO and co-founder of Ono Tea Phuong Le
Viet Le, One Tea's chief creative officer
All photographs by Detroit Photographer Marvin Shaouni Marvin Shaouni is the Managing Photographer for Metromode & Model D.