There are no shortage of business networking organisations in Cornwall and no doubt they are a good way for start-ups to gain access to their market. Given the onset of social networking sites like facebook and LinkedIn what does the future hold and Could the social network provide a useful business tool?
About two years ago I was asked to sign up to facebook by our Cisco account manager who was labelling it as the next big thing. Unconvinced, I did as I was told. It took about another eight months for the phenomenon to "go big" and about another eight for the users to shake all of those ridiculous applications.
I got to thinking about the application of the network for business. After about a year I have given up! The latest reports show that 80% of people who use facebook at work use it to stay in toush with friends and family rather than business. I'm guessing the other 20% are plugging away for the business hit like me.
Check out http://www.whitepapersource.com/marketing/facebook-for-business/#comment-14222
The upshot of facebook in my opinion is it depends totally on what you are selling. targeted marketing for B2C businesses works incredibly well!
For those of us in the B2b sector maybe LinkedIn is the answer?
Watch this space for updates...
I'd agree with that - Facebook is definitely most useful for B2C.
ReplyDeleteParticularly for businesses like pubs who want to create an online community to mirror the one in the "real world".
A good example is The Fountain Inn Newbridge:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54845172926
And if you're involved in the arts, especially music, then a MySpace page is pretty much essential.