The reason social media hasn’t become a bona fide sales channel is because the majority (if not all) of a social media’s audience at any one point in time – whether its Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter- are not buyers.
This hasn’t slowed the onslaught of social media spammers nor has it slowed them in their efforts to peddle wares to anyone who might be listening.
Social Media Spammers
I received an invite today from the “Naymz Reputation Network”.
Naymz Reputation Management
If I recall correctly, Naymz was originally a Google Adwords based people search and find service.
It looks like Naymz has now morphed into a Linkedin.com like professional networking service.
I still haven’t figured out how “professionals” cost justify the time required for creating and promoting their social network profile and footprint regardless of which networking service they have chosen.
Before I would invest any significant amount of time building a web based “social presence”, I would first ask the social media providers how many of their social network users have produced a measurable, consistent, predictable return on their investment – whether in time, money or both – and how often have social network users replicated their results?
I just added my Twitter account into my Linkedin account profile after noticing Owen Frager had added it to his “what he is working on” Linkedin updates.
Twitter TimCohn
Pretty cool Owen…
Linkedin TimCohn
I had been meaning for some time to write about the importance of “owning and controlling your brand” whether personal or corporate in the most promising emerging social platforms for both offensive and defensive purposes
Appropriately, I first became acquainted with Owen after having posted on Domain King Rick Schwartz’ blog
Name.com
about how I missed the first offensive opportunity to control “my personal brand” – albeit my not so unique name – on that newfangled social platform called the world wide web way back in 1996.
Tim Cohn
Granted, its hard to gauge in advance which social platforms will have the largest audience and reach after filtering out all their noise.
However, not registering your “brand” in their databases early on can lead to remorse later on.
If you haven’t done so already, register your own brandname.com / companyname.com and create accounts for the same names in MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr – if you can…
The same holds true for individuals.
Sign up for a Linkedin account under your personal brand: your name.
Don’t be disappointed though if you can’t. If yours is a common name – it surely has long since been registered.
Registering your brands with these sites may not make you any money in the short term, but if and when social media platforms ever figure out how to make money for themselves let alone for their advertisers and users, wouldn’t it be better for you to control your brand name(s) on the most successful social media sites instead of someone else?
I have had a Linkedin account for some time and haven’t really utilized it as much as I could.
However, I recently noticed the Linkedin Groups feature and realized there might be a group for Google Adwords Professionals.
I searched Linkedin and found several groups for Google Adwords Professionals.
I found a group called Google Adwords Qualified Individuals and asked the group’s founder if I could join his Linkedin Group.
After having become a member of his group and entering the groups discussion area I then reached the overview tab which shows the group’s most recent discussion.
Linkedin Groups Discsussions Overview
I then clicked on the discussions tab where all recent group discussions are summarized.
Linkedin Groups Recent Discussions
Before I posted my question to the group, I wanted to make sure my question hadn’t already been asked by another member.
It didn’t appear my question had been asked so I entered my question in Linkedin “start a discussion” box and submitted it to start a discussion.
Linkedin Groups Start a Discussion
My question then moved to the Most Recent Discussions field within the Google Adwords Qualified Individuals Linkedin Group.
While drafting my question I realized I could include a link to a post I had written on my blog that pertained to the subject of my question.
I included the link in the discussion.
Linkedin Groups Discussions Comments
Within a day, my WordPress blog statistics began showing clicks coming from the specifc Linkedin page where the question I had posed was up for discussion.
Members of the group from different parts of the world took the time to enter the discussion and answer my question.
By allowing an outbound link within their Groups Discussion feature, Linkedin has added a potentially new way to expand the reach and power of their network.
Search Marketing Communications 
You must be logged in to post a comment.