For our type of business I think you said this is the best social networking site. If you are familiar with it, can you give us an idea of how to use it to market ourselves and connect with others? Are there other similar sites we should also be a part of?

There are so many social marketing sites that are out there.  From my experience and from what I’m learning, I’d stay away from My Space.  Although there are ‘grown-ups’ on there, it’s not the place to be if you are trying to connect with others related to your business.  And to me, it’s just too icky (technical term).

FaceBook:  Worth going to in order to connect with others – and is actually quite ‘social’ and not so much about business.  HOWEVER, it’s a way to find some people you might not find otherwise.  Whenever you log on, it asks what you’re doing.  People will say they are watching TV, wondering about life, obsessing about _____, or a variety of other things.  Guess what I put?  Something that I’m working on – partly because that’s about all I do!  Secondly, it does let others tune in, if they are interested.  The idea with FaceBook (just like with Twitter) is that you ‘can’ market but mostly it’s social…so following the 80/20 rule is smart.  What you have to be careful about is getting sucked in and spending a boatload of time on FaceBook (or other such sites).  Get on, make a few comments, get off. 

LinkedIn:  This one definitely has the most ‘business-y’ feel about it.  People are asking for ideas about _________; looking for leads for jobs; letting others know about projects they are working on; and more.  There’s not a bunch of chatter about who is watching what on TV or who is knitting something, etc.  And, the cool thing, because it’s built around the 6 degrees (or less) of separation) is that you can identify someone you want to get in touch with and find out how – from within your connections, as they are called – you could get to that person.  You ask for introductions.  So far, I haven’t asked for any introductions, but I have been a conduit for some introductions.  It’s pretty neat to see it work. 

On LinkedIn and Facebook (the two I’m most familiar with), you want to start out slowly, I think, and then ONLY ask people to connect with you (or ‘friend’ you, in FaceBook language) if you know them. 

Here are the links for both of these:

http://www.facebook.com

http://www.linkedin.com

Signing up for your account is simple (and free) and you can get started.  Again, just start slowly and learn a little bit as you go, partly by watching what others do.