It is comforting to know LinkedIn, the first site I joined over 10 years ago, is now sitting in second place as the social network for the thousands of business people I know. Of course, the two other social networks that make up the Social Networking trifecta: Facebook; has been the social network all of them reside at some level and Twitter; falling quickly out of most business people minds as a vial platform for social media.
Business Platform Extraordinaire
LinkedIn has always been a powerhouse social platform for business people. This is not to say LinkedIn does not have its downsides. LinkedIn is having a real hard time understanding the millions of entrepreneurs who reside on the site. It is very clear LinkedIn needs to better connect to this level of business people if they tend to succeed. The social environment is changing as more business find out how social media works.
Years ago, when the entire social networking craze began, the only people who understood any of the social networking sites were marketers or people in the advertising field looking for a new edge. Those executives were, and still are, the dominate member of LinkedIn. However, more operational minded professionals are starting to show up on LinkedIn addressing some of the absurdities marketing people love to try to pass on to people as things that work.
Better Ways and Ideas
Now, with social media becoming more understood by nearly every industry and genre of business more and more sole proprietors are joining LinkedIn. This wave of fresh ideas and faces is starting the engine of a new version of business networking. The good news here is these business people now understand social media and most know what works and what does not. They are less tolerate of those who ‘Do Not Get Social Media’ and more supportive of those who show they have discipline towards their image online.
LinkedIn is growing to a becoming a positive force. Now, if someone is not on LinkedIn they are not taken seriously anywhere in the digital footprint they have made. What is growing rapidly within LinkedIn has to do with how active the member is and who they reach out to connect. In order to become an ‘influencer’ on LinkedIn you have to keep the image clean and reach out to others on a regular basis.
Again, the down side of LinkedIn is they are leaving the masses of business people who reside in their basic level service to manage their own existence in hopes they will get fed up with all the spamming and step up to their premium level. This is probably a very bad move on LinkedIn part since this is going to motivate someone who is well connecting in the VC field to build another platform to compete with LinkedIn for this growing number of business people interested in a sound business networking platform free of deception.
Facebook still rules right now as the ‘go-to’ social network. However Facebook is starting to see its weaknesses very quickly and are rapidly starting to see the value business people who know how social media works can be to their platform continual success. Twitter..well, bless it heart. Twitter has always had potential to be a place for business people to build a community. However, until Twitter’s leaders change their policies to require responsiveness of its members as part of being on Twitter and case their net to catch all the scammers and spammers they allow to breed on their site it will continually be seen as a ‘Time Suck’ by the majority of business people.
LinkedIn set the bar high a long time ago and now more people are seeing LinkedIn catching up to Facebook. This is a good sign and this continued pressure by business people put on the social spaces to clean up their acts will keep the three main social networks changing to the better.
Lets hope this trend continues to trend…or whatever,,,OH, you know what I mean. Let me know how I can help.
