Okay, it’s true. I have a love-hate relationship when it comes to professional use of Facebook. When I say love-hate I mean that in every sense. There are many weeks where Facebook is an absolutely incredible source of connectivity and traffic for my clients and my own business. Still there are some weeks when I want to scream as I weed through the noise and counsel others on how to do so effectively. This is the nature of a personal network that allows brands and professionals to play in the same space. It can be hard to make it work for both audiences.
My #1 Gripe
When it comes to professional use, Facebook lacks structure around finding and maintaining meaningful discussions with customers, colleagues, fans and communities—not to mention the difficulty in allowing THEM to build meaningful relationships with each other. Facebook Pages are set up for “one-off” posts from fans (I refuse to call them “likers”), but not worthwhile for long-standing conversations, discussions and threads.
Bottom Line: Facebook’s current forum forces professional discussions to be brief, lame and superficial.
Hot: Facebook Questions
This upcoming feature appears to be addressing this issue head on! For Thought Leaders using Facebook, pay attention! This could have a great impact on how you use Facebook to meet others and converse on the largest and most powerful social network!
Facebook’s new “Questions” feature (currently still in testing,) looks like a winner—or, at least, a solid attempt to fill the void.
As the question “asker,” Facebook Questions helps you tap into the collective knowledge of the more than 500 million people. For example, if you’re looking for help with a Quickbooks question, you can use Facebook Questions to get answers. Because questions will also appear to your friends and their friends, you’ll receive answers that are more personalized to you. Even better, as the question “answerer,” you’ll be able to share expertise and add value to others more instantly, efficiently and effectively.
My HUGE hope is that this feature will reduce the time needed to sift and poke through endless Facebook pages and groups.
Look Familiar?
If you’re an avid LinkedIn user you know that LinkedIn Answers and the latest release of LinkedIn Discussions are game changers. You can join or kick off your own discussion and hold some seriously in-depth pow-wows with other professionals. Granted, the time investment is significant. However, the return on that engagement (ROE) is far greater than that found on single-layer Facebook fan pages. If participating in these forums, take a look at the resulting quality of traffic to your blog or website. During your most active weeks, you’ll no doubt find your LinkedIn visitors stick around longer, visit more pages and are simply more qualified to be on your site. Let’s hope Facebook Questions is a step in the same direction.
Not-So-Hot: Facebook Places
You’ve no doubt heard about or tried out last week’s release of Facebook Places. While potentially fun for personal use, the benefit to professionals looking to build relationships with clients, customers or colleagues is questionable. Like Foursquare, Facebook Places has its place (sorry…bad pun), but for Thought Leaders, I’d suggest using it sparingly or risk becoming another noisy F
acebook user. Perhaps you’d like to share your travels with your network…or share that you’ve checked in for your next speaking gig or conference. All of these can lead to somewhat interesting engagements. Checking in at Staples or Chili’s, however, may not provide much meaningful dialogue.
