Over the past few months, I have developed some impressions from a business perspective that I would like to share. You likely have your impressions as well, and I would be very interested to hear about them.

Twitter

Although we can send plain messages of limited length, I also see Twitter as a teaser that allows us to share information, drop gems of wisdom or to “point”. Pointing shows people that we can find and share cool stuff or we can point to our own blogs or web sites to show people that we are experts in a given field or how clever we are – or perhaps aren’t.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn not only provides a broader spectrum of who we are and who we know, it is also a forum for “twitterese”, given the link that allows tweets to appear under LinkedIn Network Activity. LinkedIn also permits us to connect and associate with people at various levels. In doing so, we can often see members of our associates’ LinkedIn groups, which can sometimes afford other opportunities. Beyond that it can help us to find and join groups of others with common interests and engage in dialogue with these people.

Blogs

Blogs allow us to say many things and present ourselves as experts. Of course, they can be challenged so content must be well founded. I find that blog posts are one of the best ways for businesses to share valuable information and they provide an excellent forum for educating. Once a blog post has been written, a tweet can be used like a mini advertisement to direct people to it.

Web Site

Web sites have been around for many years now, but they do fit into the media mix. They often provide more detailed information about who we are, what we offer and provide yet another forum for presenting ourselves as experts. Of course a tweet or a blog post can link to other points of interest on a web site and a web site can provide a link to your Twitter account or to your blog.

If you are new to social media, when using Twitter, LinkedIn or any other medium that accommodates short quick messages, it is important to note that your “little blurbs” should be consistent with your brand as well as your individual image within your organization. Different reports indicate that quite a few people have been fired for comments they have made within the social media environment. Apparently some of this stems from “Drinking & Tweeting”, which is not the best idea when representing your company, regardless of the time of day.

As the entire spectrum of social media is interactively linked at many levels, any one of the foregoing can be the starting point for someone to become engaged with your corporate information. Of course any of these could also be the point at which someone leaves your information to pursue something else that may have caught their attention.

Interestingly, as I have been writing this post, the little arrow has popped up in my Inbox several times and I have had quite a few tweet notifications. Like most, I have “stepped away” to check these out and I have to admit that I have also perused a couple of articles. It’s interesting how we can step out of one world and into another and then back again, based on different stimuli within this multi-layered and multifaceted environment. Of course, as am I writing an article I am compelled to come back. However, once something grabs someone’s attention and draws him or her away, it does not always follow that they will return to the same point. I suppose that this is determined by the level of engagement, which can be the difference between keeping someone’s attention or having them drift off to follow their last incoming tweet and then never returning.

Thus far, my involvement with social media has been an interesting journey. Of course it’s not over, because we just don’t know what will evolve next. It’s an exciting world, it provides opportunity, it’s educational and it’s rewarding and I am pleased to have ventured into it.

Does this mean that I am going to dump direct marketing and go headlong into social media? Of course not, direct marketing and social media actually co-exist very nicely. And, with a direct marketing piece it’s not as easy for the reader to click on a link and forget to come back. Just a wee plug!