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“LinkedIn is for people you know. Facebook is for people you used to know. Twitter is for people you want to know” sums up pretty well the roles three largest social media sites – although nobody knows who first said it.
And as they started to catch on (if you can remember way back in 2005) the key word was “people”. It was individuals networking with other individuals.Since then, businesses have seen the opportunity to extend their message to the world. Be it reaching customers, vendors or prospects, everybody agrees social media is a “good thing”.
Supply Management (and sister title CPO Agenda) are no strangers to this trend with a presence on Facebook and Twitter and, for CPOA, a huge and vibrant LinkedIn group.
I have been asked: “Why, what do you gain?” Many buying organisations are considering the same point. For us, these sites present the chance to get our articles to a wider audience. They also drive traffic to our websites. Indeed, some CIPS members will be reading this article on our blog.
But for procurement professionals the benefits may be less clear cut. And this probably explains why their take-up among buyers has been slow, as discussed in our cover feature on page 28.
I think the advantages for buyers can be huge. Raising your profile among potential suppliers, stakeholders and peers is never a bad thing. And doing so using these established and popular sites is free. Imagine the costs and work required to establish a site of your own that could reach all these groups.
Plus, you can disregard the communication that isn’t helpful for you and make the most of those contacts and ideas it does reveal. Which site you choose will depend on your requirements. But I would urge some caution. Choosing Friends Reunited in 2005 wouldn’t now look like a great decision.
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I have been a member of LinkedIn for 5-6 years. As Steve Bagshaw says, LinkedIn is good for networking, but I believe that the jewel in the crown is the Q&A section. This is not the help desk, but a means to ask and answer questions of a professional nature.
I have found the Q&A section fascinating; the quality of the answers is mostly very high indeed. It is surprisng how high is the calibre of people that respond to questions, so it is a valuable (and rapid) source of information and opinion. I put some effort into my responses and I have had some lively exchanges via email outside LinkedIn. I have made several interesting connections via the Q&A sessions, some at my invitation, some at theirs and have continued to exchange emails with most of them. From a connection made this way, I was invited into an industry group that has a lively website and discussion page in which I have also participated.
I only select those questions where I feel that I have something to offer and consequently I enjoy answering them. The best questions force me to think carefully about the topic and sometimes to structure my response in a different way to usual. I look at the questioner’s profile and try to take into account their nationality and background, by choosing carefully my words, sentence structure etc and try to avoid idiom and jargon.
I know I have helped others because they told me so. I believe that I have helped myself because exchanging views about what I do for a living to people that are not experts at it (or are experts but in a different industry, or are half a world away) is always refreshing and forces me to keep my mind open to alternative approaches and interpretations.
For those who still are doubters, I commend LinkedIn to you.