 To interact with Lorenz Lammens Inc. and other clients, leave comments on this blog or visit the 'Profit Online' Forum.
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Tuesday, 07 October 2008 06:43 |
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 1. Look for old co-workers and current connections: you've got an address book in Outlook that takes 3 minutes to start up, but how many relevant people do you contact? The power of Facebook is that you connect (at the right moments!) with people you have forgotten: because you in the same group, and posting about the same issues, because a new connection is a mutual friend of one of your old colleagues (you realized this because you looked through his friends trying to find a new angle), etc.
- Warning: be very selective about the friends you add: Facebook as a professional network is not about quantity, it's about quality. I saw a picture of a girl, drunk, blouse fallen below the cleavage. The photo wasn't in her profile, but tagged with her name by an moronic friend. I can't imagine it was a pleasant experience.
2. Add applications - selectively
- There are two ways of adding apps: ones that everyone can see on your profile, and apps that only you can see on your homepage. Make use of this functionality
- Some useful Facebook apps:
- Calendar allows you to share your agenda with the world
- My Questions allows you to post a question you've been struggling with, and have your friends and networks help you figure out the answer.
- Marketplace can help you find a competitive quote, although there is plenty of more specialized websites on the web.
- App development puts you in touch with developers that can build you a Facebook app to promote your company (what's in a name) - they are generally very cheap
- WalkieTalkie enables you to add a chatroom to the groups you create and join, thus stimulating spontaneous conversation.
- YouTube skins allows you to share professional videos you loaded to YouTube
- Video allows you to share your video directly from your desktop to Facebook.
- Causes can help you raise money for your works charity.
3. Keep sane: keep your homepage clean
Click the preferences button on Facebook and edit the types of news stories you want to be alerted on.
4. Edit your profile and security settings.
More info here, scroll down to "changing the default security settings".
5. Join groups related to your business interests and keep it buzzing: look for events
The groups you join will be hosting networking and other events. This is a perfect opportunity to expand your world. Bring business cards.
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Monday, 22 September 2008 17:18 |
The two headed monster
 Facebook is rapidly gaining field on Linkedin. Linkedin has been the darling of professionals due to its professional look and superior functionality for finding people with relevant business connections or experiences. Linkedin is a powerful platform to reconnect with colleagues, find employees, and answer questions.
But since Facebook has entered business networking, it has portrayed some evolutionary advantages: Facebook is addictive, has an open platform that benefits from thousands of developers creating new apps everyday (giving you a reason to come back and enhancing functionality by the hour) and like eBay, has an naturally universal brand, that can encompass many networks, from students to business people to young mums, without alienating any of these audiences.
And herein lies both the attraction and the risk for the business community: Facebook has uniquely combined the personal with the business aspect and as a result it can as easily give your business networking a personal appeal as it can get you fired or loose a deal.
Facebook as virtual desktop
Walk around any office and you can easily make out what people are like by examining their office desks. Jonny B Good is still with the girl he met at university, and has pictures of Bungee jumping in Australia and pictures of mud monsters at Glastonburry. You can imagine what his weekends are like. Bridget Eyre's got pictures of 4 different kids, all looking like her, which explains her gentle nature and the occasional bags under her eyes. You can imagine her weekends looking nothing like Jonny's.
Facebook is your work desktop, a shortcut for strangers to get a feel for the personal you. Rule of thumb: if it doesn't belong on your work desktop, it doesn't belong on your profile (and just to avoid misunderstanding: if you have a picture on your desk of you getting sick last Saturday night, and think that is holy appropriate: there is still hope, but delete your Facebook profile for the mean time).
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