A presentation I delivered to the St. Lawrence County Leadership Institute on the use of social networking for professionals.

1. Are you connected?

2.  Goals and Objectives
 Social Networking and Knowledge Sharing
 Networking: Online
 What are the benefits to online networking?
 Salient points of social networking in the business world
 Examples of online networking/social networking
 How does this benefit St. Lawrence County?
 How can all of this benefit you professionally/socially?
 Questions/Closing

4.  What are the “kinds” of networking we are used to?
 What would be considered “knowledge sharing”
networking?
 How connected are we? What makes it a “social”
network?
 Six Degrees of Separation
 The “Kevin Bacon Theory”
 Social Networking: In plain English

5. Is online networking only a social
component? How is new connectivity
impacting how we interact and
obtain our knowledge?
How do we define a social
network?
What are the benefits to
online networking?
How has social networking impacted
the professional landscape and the
way we communicate?

6.  What is the difference
between online
networking and social
networking?
 What defines a social
network? Professional
networking? Are the two
intertwined?
 What are some of the
benefits professionally to
you? To your company or
employer?

8.  Over 6,000 people a day join Facebook
 Over 100 million people a day make entries on
Facebook
 Over 40 million people have profiles on Linked in
 Since 2003, over 70 million “blogs” have been created
 People 45-54 yrs old have a 175.3% growth on social
networks in the last year
 Women over the age of 55 have a 165.8% growth in the
last 4 months
 People over the age of 45 have represent over 35
million profiles on Facebook

9. 1. Building Business Relationships: Diversify your network (“Word of
Mouse”)
2. More accessible to others and easier access to information and
knowledge.
3. Shatters time and geographical boundaries
4. Develop Professional Skills
5. Online networking can be a low-cost marketing tool.
6. Highly interactive and can offer immediate communication
Source: http://ezinearticles.com

10.  Recruitment
 Marketing
 Brand Building
 Customer/Community Interaction
 Locating Strategic Partners – Medical Quote
 Gather Business Intelligence

11. Social networking helps you
› Establish professional creditability
› Builds an online presence
› Makes you easy to find
Social networking helps you
› Build a network of strong professionals
› Connect you to your next opportunity
› Help you find positions not on the job boards
Love your network, help it grow
› Stay active in your chosen network
› Help others in your network
› Deepen your current connections

13. Online Networking and Social Networking:
Fasten Your Seatbelts!

15. “Blog is a site you are reading today.
Knowing it was written yesterday.
Expecting it to be written tomorrow.”
“Blogs enable the author to write lots of short, informative
articles. I can categorize the articles, and they are all easily
searchable. This allows my readers and clients to later find
the information they need on my blog.”
“A simplistic, evolutionary website which allows users to effortlessly
express them selves, share their knowledge and advice throughout the
internet, they adapt and evolve to meet the needs of the present.”
Source: www.dailyblogtips.com/27-definitions-for-blog/

16.  Five characteristics of a good blog
 Good blog content is purposeful
 Good content is well-written
 Good blog content is relevant
 Good blog content is timely
 Good blog content encourages thought and
discussion
“Blogs are good for business”
- Microsoft chairman Bill Gates

18.  Twitter
 Research Tool
 Networking – the key to twitter
is to find people who send out
meaningful tweets and follow
them
 Contribute – those who
contribute tweets are more Follow me @JoshLaFave
likely to be followed by others
thereby increasing your network
 Resources – since using Twitter I
have come across more helpful
resources than ever before

20. What is RSS?
RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly
changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs
and other online publishers syndicate their content as an
RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

24.  Originally launched in 2004 for University students in
the US to keep in contact
 Now the largest social networking site with over 120
million users
 Users can join networks organized by city, workplace,
school and region to connect with other people
 People can add friends, send messages and update
their personal profile to notify friends about
themselves. Now, companies are doing the same
thing.

25.  Facebook pages offer you a way to accurately represent
on facebook what’s important in real life.
 Pages can be created to represent a public figure,
artist, and or organization and may only be created by
an official representative of that entity.

29.  LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network
with over 60 million members and growing rapidly.
LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and
helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and
opportunities with a broader network of professionals.

31. Start a discussion, share a news article and discuss topics with others that
share similar interests!

38. Let’s go over the handout:
Putting this all into action
- Creating profiles for
yourself
-Identifying yourself…your
digital footprint
- Using these sites to
promote your ideas, your
business
- Streamline information