A common perception out there relative to social networks is that the only ones gaining real business value are those using the networks to troll for customers, and that there is a vast difference between what the users and suppliers of information technologies are trying to accomplish with all of this status updating and tweeting and blogging.
Well, yes and no.
The charts below illustrate what users (the first) and suppliers (the second) of information technologies are trying to achieve through involvement in business social networks.
Both users and suppliers see social networks as key to staying informed, doing research, getting answers to questions, and learning from others, with the users placing a bit more value on networking.
As one would expect, there is a dichotomy when it comes to using networks to find customers.
What this means for those on the sell side is a need for a bit more subtlety than you often see. If you are to be credible, you need to be involved in the community, not just posting links to the latest press release or product spec sheet. You need to add value to the conversation, not try to monopolize it. Educate in order to build credibility.
Other posts on this survey that may be of interest.
[Note: The survey was targeted at current LinkedIn, Facebook, and InformationZen participants, as well as readers of the Digital Landfill blog. The intent was to focus on business use of social media tools outside the firewall by users, suppliers, and consultants in the information management space. The survey was conducted in February 2010 and had 332 respondents. Feel free to reuse any statistics with the attribution "AIIM, Survey of Social Media Activists, http://www.aiim.org"
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