How To Live Off a Social Network
ADOTAS EXCLUSIVE — A couple of prospects and business associates recently contacted my PR agency asking me to help them find someone that could help them find someone to help them with their social networking outreach. Though I do reach out to many blogs in the media outreach I provide for my clients, I do not focus on “social media.” I predominantly work for business-to-business clients, and find some of these social programs, beyond targeted blog outreach, less effective.
As someone who reads a lot, I have to say that I am a little baffled by the special focus blog outreach seems to get today. Everyone is providing tips on how to reach out to bloggers, but is it really any different from reaching out to any other reporter? I read up on almost every journalist that I contact to make sure that my pitches are on target, regardless if the person I’m targeting is a blogger or a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
But what I really wanted to focus on in today’s column is the following theme related to social networking – that we all live in social networks.
As a technology publicist in Israel, a country with 6 million people — about 100,000 of whom work in high-tech, I have learned that everything comes down to whom I know. Coming to Israel at 30 after university and the obligatory military service in this country, it took me a number of years to build up the base of contacts that I have. But when I look at my current client base, I see that 90% of my business is related to one client I worked with four years ago. In fact, I presently have no clients from cold calling – all of my current clients are referrals or acquaintances. And referrals are the root of expanding a social network.
With its small population, patterns in Israel more closely resemble patterns found in social networks. But I believe all of us will find that we gravitate in social networks, and in fact have for years (before what we now call social networks existed). Social networking platforms have simply made it easier for us to be better
How easy is it to post “Happy Birthday” on the wall of our Facebook friends, yet on my last birthday, only one person posted a Happy Birthday note (and I know that I have other friends who check Facebook daily). Either my friends don’t like me, or some of them are not being effective social networking citizens.
But beyond happy birthday pokes, social networks also make it easier to send contacts articles or other pieces of information that can strengthen the social bond with those in our social communities.
The days of having to get into the right golf club are over. We are all living in social networks that can make it easier for us to contact the most exclusive people. We just need to approach the process intelligently, and we will then be able to reap the rewards of a better social networking rolodex.
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Reader Comments.
Reaching out to bloggers in a blog outreach program I believe is very different than reaching out to reporters of the media. Perhaps it’s not as quite different with b2b bloggers, but it is definitely different with lifestyle, consumer bloggers, especially with the wide variety of “mommy” or “parent” bloggers that exist. With a blogger you have a window into their world. You know what they did yesterday or if they’ve recently had a happy or sad event in their life. Reporters don’t talk about themselves as blogger do. They report the news.
So when reaching bloggers you need to be aware of who they are and if the product or service you are reaching out to them is truly something that would interest them as well as their readers.
Uriah makes a good point about the lack of follow up that tends to plague many business folks that join networks like Facebook, Linked In or Ryze, with the best of intentions. I suggest to clients that they pick one or two to get started with, and be ready to devote at least an hour or two a week to updating, researching and reaching out within that network. After a time, they can decide if they are ready and able to expand into more networks. Tangible results can be obtained from social networking for business, but just like everything else, there are best practices and guidelines for success.
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