Social Media: What have you done for me lately?

Have you taken stock of the value you are getting? What are your benefits? Business, personal, entertainment or education? Here's my report card…

Let's tackle the big one first…Facebook.

You may have seen the news recently, FB hit 1 billion users. Pretty incredible given its only eight years old. For me, I've all but abandoned Facebook. If it wasn't for the Flipboard app on my iPad I honestly don't think it would hit my daily radar. That been said, I get two things from it:

1) I get to scan my friends & colleagues photos and see where they are traveling and what they are eating. It's mostly entertainment.

2) I do use it for work and have a couple of groups set up for our niche audiences – so I need to be on it whether I want to or not. 

Here's an interesting infographic regarding today's "value" of Facebook compliments of @JeffHurt

LinkedIn – my old friend

Clocking in at nine years old and closing in on 200 million users, LinkedIn has established itself as the site for professional networking. I've still not taken the plunge to upgrade to a paid/premium account but am sure I would be hooked if I did. What impresses me about LinkedIn is the constant evolution of its tools and widgets that are either skills/experience or network focused. In fact, at their #intalent conference (on Oct 11) - which was live streamed for everyone and anyone – they announced a new tool that will deliver warm leads to you automatically. For me, LinkedIn is indispensable  – my entire professional and personal network is integrated. And of course its home to the world-renowned group The Steve Report! The beauty of LinkedIn is no matter where my professional career takes me, my LinkedIn profile comes with me. With the war for talent only just warming up, LinkedIn is going to be at the centre of it.

Twitter – my new BFF

I will openly admit, I didn't get Twitter or understand it during its first few years on the scene. Now at six years old and over 500 million users generating over 340 millions tweets/day, I am fully engaged in its power. I use it equally for both personal and professional gain. I follow some pretty interesting folks like @QueenRania, @hwinkler4real (yes the Fonz!), @Alyssa_Milano and @chrissyteigen. But I also follow countless professional people & organizations that have almost replaced my traditional news sources. Twitter has gained real ground of late with the simple integration of photos into tweets and they recently announced a similar plan to integrate video (watch out FB). As for the benefits to me? I have successfully & consistently driven traffic to our website(s), a direct result that I can monetize.

Some New Kids…

I've only recently started playing with Foursquare and am quite impressed. I don't have it on my  phone…only on my iPad so I'm restricted to free Wi-Fi zones (which explains why I'm stellar at checking in at Starbucks & Tim Hortons!). I've also recently downloaded Pinterest and am equally impressed with its simple application. If you have products or services that are visual, I highly suggest you check it out. I've also been reading that the recently re-launched MySpace is slick and could be the comeback kid of 2013.

In Summary…

Having played with almost all of the platforms, I'm convinced you don't need to be a #socialmedianinja to get value out of them. My advice, pick one or two that you feel most comfortable with and make a commitment to play with them. The first benefits you will see are likely be social/entertainment…and then you will understand how organizations are able to apply strategies to gain market share, loyalty and brand engagement.

One Last Thing…

If you are on one or all of these and don't have a clue what to publish as your status update or tweet…check out this brilliant blog regarding content marketing by @ScottMonty (Head of social media at Ford Motor Company)

Until next time,

@stevedempsey