Advisors and social networking: More than LinkedIn

Commentary April 08, 2009 at 08:00 PM
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As we mentioned previously, if you're unfamiliar with the marketing value of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, you're probably typing up your promotional material on an old Underhill and giving it to the telegram boy on a bike.

If you are in fact familiar with social networking sites, are you using them to your marketing advantage? According to a Forrester Research report from this January, more than 60 percent of baby boomers are consumers of socially-created media.

As Karie Luidens writes in The Holland Sentinel, "Social network sites, blogs and uploaded video are all old news by Internet standards, but the technologies that have allowed teenagers and college students to publicize their favorite bands, rocky relationships and parties are now being adopted for grown-up purposes."

In Washington, she notes, politicians have capitalized on the newer ways of keeping in touch with voters. This February, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, made headlines when he sent real-time messages about his movements in Iraq using Twitter. His office has also recently created a YouTube account to broadcast video clips of the congressman.

Even Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who freely admitted to being "computer illiterate" during his 2008 presidential campaign, now has his own Twitter account, Luidens writes. He peppers his 338,860 followers with several sentence fragments a day describing his activities or his political perspectives.

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