Windows on the Web:  Value of Social Media Marketing

By Bruce Kratofil
NABE Webmaster

It’s safe to say that most NABE members are facing a certain amount of professional uncertainty at the moment. The economic crisis is going to put a strain on NABE, as members find their budgets cut for things like membership, travel, and sponsorship.
By the same token, many NABE members face uncertain prospects too, and may find themselves searching for jobs or clients.  There are now a large quantity of free social media tools that both NABE and its members can use for marketing, networking and publicity.

Gain a Significant Web Presence

Ten years ago, if a company or person wanted a Web presence, they either needed to know things like HTML, FTP, and Web design, or they had to hire someone who did.  While there were ways, like GeoCities, where you could get a free site, in most cases you also had to pay to rent a website. Today, if you want a Web presence, there are plenty of ways to do it yourself, and without paying anything.

(You don't need to take my word for it, either. Three days after I turned this article draft in, I discovered this Washington Post article that had actually been written about a week earlier - talking about how to use Facebook and LinkedIn for job hunting.)

LinkedIn

NABE’s Get Connected group has formed a group on LinkedIn . I talked about LinkedIn in the December 2007  edition of NABE News, saying it was probably the best of the social media groups for professional networking. As of today, there are 126 members of the Get Connected group, although not all of them are members of NABE. My opinion remains unchanged – it is the best social media tool for a professional.  (I’m up to 152 connections, with 19,400 connections two degrees away. Those are pretty low numbers compared to some of the people who use LinkedIn aggressively.) LinkedIn was also the source of over 1,000 visits to the NABE website last year, although there is no real way of knowing if those visitors were already members or not.

Facebook

In the 2007 article, I didn’t have a very high opinion of Facebook as a professional networking tool. Over time, I’ve started to warm up to it. Partially it is due to use, for I use it daily to keep in touch with my daughter who’s away at college. And partially it’s due to the huge number of college and post-college people using it. Career bank robber Willie Sutton was once asked why he robbed banks. “That’s where the money is” was his reply. It’s something similar with NABE – if we want to be serious about gaining young people as members, we need to go where they all hang out.

So I’ve created both a “group” and a “fan page” on Facebook for NABE, in addition to my personal page. You can’t see them if you aren’t a Facebook member, but it’s free to sign up if you aren’t. Once there, a search of groups for “Business Economics” should lead you to the page. The NABE features have only been up for about a week, so it’s too early to say how much activity they will generate.

In addition to NABE, the Washington, D.C., chapter (The National Economists Club) and the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter (DFW Association for Business Economics) have groups on Facebook.  Searching the group directory for “business economics” turned up over 500 groups with those keywords.

There are also some noneconomic uses.  I’ve been in touch with a number of high school and college classmates through the search function on Facebook, and I’ve also become Facebook friends with a number of people from Croatia named Kratofil who I may or may not be related to.

Twitter

In the last two issues of WoW, I’ve talked about Twitter, so there’s no need to cover it again, other than to remind you that NABE’s Twitter feed is at http://twitter.com/business_econ.

Ning

NABE chapters looking for a quick and easy way to have achapter website might want to consider Ning, another social media site I discussed in the earlier article. It’s a way to post events, get publicity and allow your members to network with one another without having to know any HTML code or incur website costs.

And finally…

We are still looking for participants in this year’s NABE Fantasy Baseball league. Read more about it here.