Viper Creative

Online Social Networking - It doesn’t Bite

Author: Neil Wilkins

Neil learnt his marketing with the likes of Orange, NatWest, BP Castrol and Ordnance Survey and now helps individuals and businesses to communicate more effectively. He trains and mentors marketers on professional Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications through to post-graduate level.

Isn't that just typical though. Companies like ours always spend their time telling everyone else how great things are to do and yet don't find the time to do it themselves. We hold up our hands and drop our heads in shame!

Well actually it's not quite as bad as it seems. In many ways we have been like the vast majority of companies across the UK in a whole host of different market sectors. We have struggled to see the link between the fun of Facebook and the harsh commercial reality of generating new business and clients. Well in recent months with the huge explosion of interest in particularly Twitter and LinkedIn we could suddenly see how regular interaction with our friends and contacts in this online social world could bring us new business opportunities. Not just nice chatty and friendly opportunities but a real opportunity to promote our brand, our services and the great work we are doing for all our clients.

Yes the time has arrived when online social networking has hit the premier league of marketing and communications tools. We saw it rising through the lower leagues over recent years and months but in the latter stages of 2008 and now certainly in the first quarter of 2009 it's vying for a champions league place next season.

Here's the opportunity then. You either embrace the change and see this as an unknown but exciting and very cost effective way of developing your business or you sit on the fence or worse still, shy away from it as something not relevant to you or your organisation and too technical for you to think about.

For those willing to find out more and jump in now you will be glad you did. If you don't then there's a huge danger that by the time you do (and believe us, you will at some point in the future) your competitors or peers will be so far ahead of you that you'll never actually catch up.

If you are curious to learn from others who have made mistakes and learnt some good things just ahead of you then get in touch and we'll tell you what works and what doesn't for us. And don't worry, it really doesn't bite!

- Posted on Wednesday 01 Apr 2009 at 16:51 by Neil Wilkins

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