Social Media for Business

Take “commercial real estate” out and replace it with your own business type, and you’ll find yourself relating to my most recent post at our Sibdu Blog.

Really an “Online Professional/Social Networking 101” post, it details how you can get started in using social media to build your business. I’ve also included a PowerPoint presentation I gave earlier this week to a group of commercial real-estate brokers and business brokers (those who help people buy and sell companies).

It is amazing how a real professional/social networking group experience (like the one I was at Wednesday) is very similar to an online social network. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, of course. One of the aspects I like about online networking is the tools that are available to members that you just can’t .. er .. “do” .. in real-life situations. Like document storage. Like threaded conversations with different people. People who are across the country (or even the world).

Of course, you’d probably expect me to say all of this, being in enterprise social networking and all. I do believe there are advantages to the whole face-to-face (F2F) thing; I’d never suggest giving that up. But if you supplement F2F with online networking, you can keep in touch with people at any time of day or night .. you don’t need to drive to an event that only happens once a week/month/etc. Plus, you can meet people online that you’d never meet otherwise, because they’re across the country, don’t move in the same social/business circles, etc.

So read. Learn. And hopefully you’ll be interested and motivated enough to sign up for a LinkedIn or Facebook. Or Sibdu, if you’re in any aspect of commercial/investment real estate.