Who Knows Who
I just came across an article on Twitter from Harvard Business Review on the effectiveness of social networks for employee collaboration. I found this article a good thought piece on the importance of thinking through quality over quantity with social networking in general. Personally, I am guilty of indiscriminately building my LinkedIn account with the goal of passing through the target 500 contacts. I am also the recipient of too many tweets, nudges and LinkedIn postings that are irrelevant to me and my business. This HBR article advises that:
"we need to think about where our electronic links are taking us. If we are circulating too much with people we have known forever or people who themselves are all spending time in the same meetings and interactions, then we are not getting the performance impact we can from social-media tools. Bigger is not better. The magic lies in the new ideas and perspectives that can come from connections into different networks."
I advise colleagues, friends and clients to think carefully through their social media tactics in advance of engaging these powerful tools. I guess it really speaks to integrating social media into your overall communication strategy and brand building plan. Harvard Spotlight provided a series of valuable articles including hiring a social media ringmaster to collaboratively build content with large organization social media efforts. Quality really is more important than quantity. Uncoordinated, high frequency social networking does not reflect well on your brand and can waste everyone's time.
1 Comment
Theresa said
Organizing and agreeing who will take the lead is more of a challenge with large organizations. There is also the challenge when employees want to start their own company FB, thinking that this group is private.