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It drives my children up the wall, I’m on Facebook and all their friends are now my contacts. When I state on something, they laughingly say “you’re stalking me, mom, I’m going to take you off my contact list”. (Hasn’t happened yet so I think they aren’t really serious about that.)

But what’s a 40 something year old (and a business owner at that) doing on Facebook?

Community know Linkedin well and don’t raise an eyebrow when asked if they are in linkedin. That’s because Linkedin is largely used for professional networking. But you ask them if they are on Facebook or Twitter and they look at you like you’ve lost it.

I have a profile on all three and some more sites like ecademy, myspace (yeah, who wants to be there anymore?) and several other sites.

But I mainly use Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. These sites let me to develop new business relationships. And by showing ongoing updates on both twitter and facebook, I keep in front of new contacts so that they become aware of me and my business.

I do decide who I wish to network with. I’m also a bit reluctant to connecting with someone who’s just going to bombard me with “buy this” messages. But all in all, posting comments on Facebook and Twitter has become second nature to me in the past few weeks.

So how has that helped me?

Well, I am now connected to people or offices which I could never attain without these social networking sites. I follow people like Barack Obama (truly!), Whitehouse, Governor Granholm, and many more. No, they are not my “friends” per say. But I can go through what they are up to and they can go through my posts (if they were so inclined). Pre-Facebook and Twitter, could you ever get that close to the president, governor, and the president elect and actually get a chance to do one-on-one messaging to them?

Have I closed new business yet?

As long as business goes, well, I can’t say that I’ve closed sales one after the other due to my social networking.

But I can say that I’ve improved branding and visibility, there is a definite improvement in traffic, and I have the opportunity to explore business alliances with more people than ever before.

Will it lead to positive lead generation and closure? Not sure! But will it benefit me in the long run? Absolutely!

It will profit me because using social networking sites, I am able to network with people across the world and eventually those people will become my referral sources just as I will become theirs. And that is invaluable in business.

So guys, if you’ve not yet joined the social networking revolution, start now. Just spotlight one or two sites first. And remember, creating an account and doing nothing with it is not social networking. Networking, whether offline or online, requires effort.

It’s quick and easy to do. It will take time so be aware of it. Don’t get addicted to it but be sure to do a little online networking every day. So go now and create your profile on Facebook, Twitter, and any other site that catches your fancy. And be sure to add me to your “friends” or “follow” list.

Visit Online marketing expert blog for more such blogs on social media marketing.

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