As we blogged about last week, we were happy to have Sam Mandolfo in town to speak to the Iowa AMA. You can find a recap and the presentation of that meeting here.
Chances are you are on Linkedin. In fact, of the 120 + people in attendance at last week’s meeting, only three of them admitted to NOT being on Linkedin. According to Wikipedia, “Linkedin has over 90 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.” That stat should have surprised you. It surprised me because for a social platform with so many members, I feel like I don’t derrive enough value out of Linkedin.
I use LinkedIn as a personal Rolodex of people I’ve met. There is huge networking value for me as a professional for my current job and perhaps a job later in my career. Everyone can probably agree that this is the Linkedin we know. But I always leave Linkedin thinking there should be more. Don’t you?
Mr. Mandolfo set up a large part of his presentation which this slide, “Social Network’s Personality Profile.” The idea here is that social platforms are defined largely by context. MySpace is your Friday & Saturday Nights, Facebook is your weekend and backyard bar-b-que, Linkedin is Monday – Friday and Twitter is your 24X7x365 non stop content machine.
While this slide is an interesting take on social platforms, it’s clearly the story Linkedin wants you to believe. As Mr. Mandolfo implied, if you believe that Facebook is only for weekends and back-yard bar-b-ques then what does that mean for brands? Are Facebook “Like Pages” for brands pointless? Is using Facebook to network not advised because it’s out of context? Mr. Mandolfo even said something to the effect that asking for a job or help finding a job at a backyard bar-b-que isn’t done, or shouldn’t be done. Implying that because Facebook is a back-yard bar-b-que it shouldn’t be done there either because it’s “out of context.”
And that’s where I took exception. In this job climate, if you’re unemployed, you should be looking to network with people at a bus stop. Networking doesn’t stop just because you’re eating bratwurst and wearing shorts. It also doesn’t stop on Facebook.
I can’t pretend that Linkedin’s jab at Facebook for business opportunities doesn’t have something to do with Facebook’s recent launch of BranchOut which is presented as “Career Networking On Facebook. The truth of the matter is that brands do quite well on Facebook because people have the option to choose whether they invite that brand to their back-yard bar-b-que.
What do you think? Will context control where you network? Or, will you continue to exercise your choice to create and consume content whenever and wherever you want?
Note: The views expressed in this post are mine alone and do not necessary reflect the beliefs of AMA IOWA.
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I’ve always sort of felt that Linkedin doesn’t exactly “own” what they are and what people use them for. I think they’re a little self-conscious in this way — sort of like being the nerdy little brother of the starting quarterback.
I think there’s some room for growth with them, as long as they accept that they are one of many great social networking platforms and continue to expand on what they do best.