Why You Should Be Using Social Media

You should be using social media both for business and for your personal life.

Here’s why:

1. The power of weak ties. Social capital increases as your connections with others increase. Deep connections with just a few people is less important overall than being loosely connected to a great number of people.
2. Ambient awareness of your network. Mundane as the updates may be, ambient awareness of what’s going on in others lives can give you a better feel for other individuals, creating an advantage for you should you need to ask them for something.

Despite these reasons to use social media, I know many people who don’t do more than dip a toe in the water. The reasons given for not engaging generally include some form of the following:

1. Time management. “I’m busy enough with email without having to check 3 more places to see who’s trying to reach me.”
2. Unawareness of the learning curve. “I tried it, it seemed stupid, so I stopped.”
3. Privacy concerns. I don’t need people knowing where I am or who I’m meeting with.

Let’s take these one at a time:

Time management. The irony of any time-saving function is that for the time while you’re learning it, it’s actually less efficient than your current state. One thing you can do about that is always make sure you have a crystal clear goal in mind when using Twitter or LinkedIn. For instance, one of the training modules I’ve developed (for sales people, managers, and professionals) helps people get up and running on LinkedIn; this open-laptop training starts with me asking participants who they would like to get in touch with? It makes their activities much more directed, and means that no time is wasted on academic issues.

Unawareness of the learning curve. Let me be clear: you will waste time, and send out connection requests that will go unanswered. You will tell jokes that will be misinterpreted, send your most pithy observations into a black hole of apathy, and watch someone else get credit for them a week later. You will make mistakes. And? So will everyone else. It’s all part of the learning living process.

Privacy concerns. Two things. First, this is not the same world as it was before Facebook and Twitter. Even if you want to keep things quiet, the people you’re doing business with might not… and you cannot control what they write. It’s like we’re all in the gossip column now. After a business call the other day, one of the participants sent this. It was retweeted three times before I even logged on. Second, there are more ways to manage privacy than to become a digital hermit. For instance, I tend to tell people where I was rather than where I’m going.

Now, if you’re on my blog, you probably already have at least a passing familiarity with social media… but if not, give it a try. And if you want help with that learning curve, let me know.

Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.