WHY facebook...Twitter...LinkedIn...?

The latest BizBuzzz is all about the social networking sites that they say every business should be a part of. Are they right? What is all the buzz about, anyway? Why should your business be represented on the internet at all, and why on any of these upstart social networking sites, eh?

Let's take a look at the basic steps for evaluating the benefits of any of these sites and if they're right for your business.

• The first step you take should be to find out what these sites can do and get some sense of what they're all about; only then can you consider the remaining questions.
• The second step should be to find out if the benefits of belonging to any or all of these sites will help your business in any way. This is your business, not every other business, and you are the only one who can decide if membership in these networks will improve exposure to your existing market or assist in providing growth via exposure to a new market.
• The third step is to understand how much of your business time is required for maintaining and growing your network on any of these sites. Additionally, will it be you who invests this time or will you assign this responsibility to an associate or employee and will that person represent your business in conguence with your businesse's identity and other marketing efforts.
• The fourth step is to identify your expectations or Return On Investment (ROI). If you don't know what you want, how can you measure any progress or the lack of progress. While the networking sites can keep you busy; while you may amass hundreds, even thousands, of friends or supporters on these networks, you have to have a way of knowing if the activity and time invested are helping your business in some way.
• The fifth step is to schedule your maintenance time. This part is easy--you can spend 30 minutes every morning or 30 minutes after dinner every other day. You decide when and for how long and schedule this activity as if it were an appointment. Some people can do it on the fly, but others feel overwhelmed and burdened by the simple task of adding a new friend, making a comment on a friend's page or even reading the daily or weekly updates from your network which are e-mailed to you. The best way to handle the maintenance, for those who are in the second group, is to schedule the time and bill it to your marketing efforts.
• The sixth step is to quit or to grow. At some point, you have to check the ROI and make a decision--either this is not right for your business (or for your business at this time) or, it's working and you need to move things up a bit. If you're ready to "kick it up a notch", the growth will come from any of the following and you don't have to jump into all of them at once: join a group and participate in the discussions, evaluate a friend's work and write a recommendation on their page, apply one of the useful applications that are available--reading list, presentation software, start a blog on your web site and post updates to Twitter and so on. There are many options on each of the sites and you get to choose which one is right for your business and for your style.
• The last step is on-going and requires that you continue to evaluate the ROI for your business. You can stop membership at any time, so, if you decide one day that the time is right for backing out of facebook (for example), do it and dedicate your time to LinkedIn. Of course, you can always quit all of the sites, but...the newest social networking site may be just around the corner, so get ready to evaluate.