Over the last few years I’ve remained committed to maintaining personal profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn. It really hasn’t taken a lot of my time to maintain these profiles. After setting the profiles up I have only spent from fifteen minutes to up to one hour per day linking up with new people or catching up on what other people are up to. I admit that I was a relatively late adopter to using social media because like so many others I thought that I was too busy to maintain social media profiles. Let’s face it, fifteen minutes to an hour is a lot of time. Boy was I wrong. Too busy? I’ve made connections that have affected both my personal life and career in so many positive ways that I regret not becoming involved sooner.
I decided to write this post because recently it dawned on me that I spend more time monitoring my social media profiles than I do watching TV. So I asked myself why? The answer came to me quickly. I realized that I am more interested in what is going on in the lives of actual people than I am characters in a TV show or movie. I realize that many will argue that social media profiles are simply a facade. But I argue that such is life. People don’t have to be updating a profile to put their ‘pretty face’ on, they’ll do that sitting across a table from you. Much like any other situation, it’s up to us to decide what’s real and what’s smoke and mirrors.
Everyone knows it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And who you know is made so much easier with tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and many others. The experience that got me hooked and hammered home the power of social media in my mind was when out of nowhere my entire first grade soccer team was reunited because one former teammate posted an old team photo on Facebook and started tagging anyone whose name he could remember. Within a few weeks all but a few on the team were passing messages back and forth on Facebook. Wow, we were all still alive. Many of us even had wives and children. The flashbacks of old memories and the joy I had seeing my old comrades’ families was something that I’ll always remember. So, like I said, I was hooked.
Since the soccer team experience I’ve been found by so many people and have reconnected with people I probably would have never connected with again. I’ll admit that some people I reconnected with I learned in a hurry that it wasn’t going to be a positive experience, so I don’t follow them any more. Big deal. Those I do follow: make me laugh, teach me something, inform me of great things I might have missed out on, entertain me, shock me and even annoy me. But I love every minute of it. Sure, sometimes people might be putting on a show or maybe they are even showing off. But this is what I meant when I referenced the old adage ‘It’s who you know.’ Social media allows you to get to know people in one more way. It keeps you connected with people ongoing and you just never know when someone is going to reach out to you, directly or indirectly. It has surprised me on several occasions how Facebook or LinkedIn sometimes provides a platform for people to interact with me as though we were never apart, even if we hadn’t spoken in years. That has served as a great indicator to me that my relationships with these people, although not current, could be built upon even if we haven’t been in contact for years.
After remaining persistent over the past few years maintaining these and other social media profiles, I can say with confidence that my personal ‘It’s who you know.’ is now on steroids and congress hasn’t caught me yet (sorry, couldn’t resist the MLB reference). I’ve reunited with friends and we are all aware of how we are trying to feed our families. I’ve had people who weren’t even on my radar as potential clients that are now my company’s clients. Oh, and one of my old soccer buddies is now one of my clients, too. He now owns his own manufacturing company. My personal profiles are now serving as great springboards for launching and gaining interest in profiles dedicated to my business endeavors. It’s time to invest some of your time in these valuable tools if you aren’t already. I’d write more on the topic but I need to go check my social media profiles. If you’d like any additional help or advice on how to best use social media for your growth, don’t hesitate to contact us. @jamesjodal
Tags: Adapting Social Networking, Emerging Technology, online marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking
