Social Media. What have you been missing?

Before I joined Engage121, a social media company where we enable clients to monitor, listen, publish, and track their social media efforts, Facebook and LinkedIn were the only two platforms I used. I had a self-fulfilling prophecy that Twitter was meant for celebrities, Facebook was to stay in touch with high school and college friends, and LinkedIn was the Facebook for professionals.

I soon learned that times have changed and businesses are capitalizing on this phenomenon. Information Technology is the only industry growing and thus creating jobs. We all know LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are the big three. But you would be surprised to see how many people are on Foursquare, Yelp, Blogs, Vimeo, Tumblr. Ect.  Our application alone links to over 50 social media platforms and review sites where user engagement is encouraged.

Being apart of corporate America, I truly believe that if an individual isn't on one of these sites, I question if they even exist. Privacy issues, API changes, cyber bullying are all new problems to deal with. It should be interesting to see how society adapts to these changes and at what cost. 

So how does this space effect my sales career? I find myself no longer picking up the phone to schedule a meeting. My background relies heavily on picking up the phone and pounding away.  This is not the case when your dealing with the fortune 1000's. Decision makers are on social media sites that are linked to their smart phones in real time. Instead of researching what location people are based out of or direct line phone numbers, I'm investigating their twitter handles and Facebook pages. Sending DM's/Inmails/Posts and it is actually working. It takes a lot for someone to ignore you on 6 different points of contact. 

There are few experts out there in this space and that's what makes it exciting. This is my first blog and I'm still in shock that I've decided to do this. Long story short, credibility is everything. I refuse to be a social media wall flower. Because we have the power to change things in real time, you can expect to see much more activity from this guy in the coming days, weeks, months, years.

"A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is.”-Scott Cook. Chairman Intuit, Board of Directors