Build Your Social Capital Ahead of the Masses (and They’re Coming!)
I remember taking a job as an HR Manager for a medical billing company in 1993. The company had grown suddenly and they needed someone to manage the new hiring that was taking place and to set up some HR systems, handbook, training, etc. All the employees had computers, but they were dummy terminals that worked on the billing software running from a mainframe. No one had a personal computer. I was shocked. It took me some bit of time to explain to the 59-year-old president why at the very least I needed a PC, and actually why he needed one as well. Good times. I finally got one, and so did he. I set us up on email – on Prodigy! I taught him how to use the PC and, though he probably used it more for practicing on beating his score on solitaire more than doing serious business on the non-billing computer, he was soon emailing away and keeping in touch with his clients regularly that way.
This was my first experience dealing with the great Generational Technology Divide. Realize, I was not a techie, and I certainly didn’t do anything technology groundbreaking. And certainly I was not one of the first people to have/use email. In fact, I was very happy to admit that I was in the “second wave” of adopters, a bit behind the true “technorati.” But…I learned from this experience that while there were a lot of people who were using it as a very helpful business tool, there were hundreds of thousands who were still completely in the dark about what an impact email would have on every aspect of our professional and personal lives…the “third wave.” With that in mind, I helped quite a few clients in the early 90s learn to embrace email.
And that is how I feel today, with the gaining popularity of social media. Sure, there are a lot of social media “superstars” and I learn from them every day. But – also every day – I realize how many people out there are not even sure what social media is, exactly, much less how to use it to their business advantage.
When they ask why they should bother with all of this “stuff” and worry that it is is just time-consuming chatting, etc, I simply ask them to take a look at the numbers; an excellent example of these lies in these stats:
Nearly 60% of LinkedIn users have high personal incomes and hold executive-level or consultant positions, Nov 10th, 2008, LinkedIn, Anderson Analytics.
Stats from CEO: 8 million to more than 30 million, while the staff has expanded from 60 to 370 employees, CEO alludes (but doesnt confirm nor deny) that revenues are $75 (million) to $100 million, The average age is 41 years old. The average household income is $109,000; 76 percent of them have a college degree or a graduate degree. It’s pretty evenly split between men and women, slightly more men. Forty-eight percent are outside the United States, from 07 to 2008. Nov, SFGate.
Facebook usage skyrockets from election activity: Includes specific usage numbers, fans and supporters, Nov 5th, Source: Zdnet
Facebook 18 Million Unique Visitors in UK, top 5th overall web property, Sep-Aug 08, Source: Comscore
More than 120 million active users (does not indicate measure of active), Facebook is the 4th most-trafficked website in the world, More than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from over 160 countries, Over 52,000 applications are currently available on Facebook Platform, Nov 2008, from Facebook Stats Page
If the numbers are right, Facebook’s online users have grown by 30 million in the last four months, up from 90 million users in early July 2008. That means that Facebook is growing much faster than the 250,000 new users per day that the company had previously estimated, Nov 3, 2008, Epoch Times
Global visitors to Twitter rose almost fivefold to 5.57 million in September from a year earlier. Nov 12, 2008, Comscore via BBC.
The numbers speak for themselves. People are online…and they are going to stay online. The time is definitely now to begin to establish your social media presence. Whether you are working in one of the world’s largest companies or a solo entrepreneur, everything is equalized in the social media space.
My tip to you today is this: The second wave of adopters is moving full force. You really don’t want to wait to be in the yet-to-come MASSIVE third wave. You’ll be missing on the earlier opportunity to build your social presence online ahead of them all.
Please fee free to forward this tip to your colleagues, clients, and others in your network. Stylo Creative Communications is happy to help by providing written content for blogs, profiles, and other social media outlets, and by growing our clients’ online social media capital through relationship building and reputation/community management.
We’ll see you out in the social network sphere!
(Start by following us on Twitter – we’ll happily follow back!)
This article will also appear on the blog of SEM-Group, and will be featured in the online magazine NetworkingNow.
December 13, 2008
Julien,
There is no question that social media is changing the face of the internet as we know it. You do a great job of illustrating this fact with your statistics. Really amazing!