Social networking: fad or new business tool? — The Longer View 

The face of our future is a teenager – thumbs flying across the tiny QWERTY keyboard of his cell phone, incessantly texting friends while at the same time carrying on a conversation with his grandparents.

It’s called “social networking” – broadly defined as being part of an online “community” of people who share a wide range of common interests: politics, religion, hobbies, sports. Think “Rotary Club” except online, instantaneous, 24/7, worldwide.
If you’re on Facebook, or have a MySpace site, or you Twitter, then stop reading here. This column isn’t for you cool technology sophisticates. It’s for us primitives who are interested in, but mystified by, the whole “social networking” thing.
For me, what elevates this exploding phenomenon beyond the status of just the latest-greatest fad are the mind-boggling implications social networking holds, not only for the way we connect with family-friends-acquaintances, but for the rapidly evolving ways we’ll be doing business from now on.  
Current pillars of the “social networking” structure are Facebook, developed in 2004 by several Harvard students; MySpace, founded in 2003 primarily for teenagers, but with increasing adult use; and Twitter, the new kid on the block, founded in 2006 (basic concept developed in 2004 at Cornell University).
Wikipedia – a user-edited encyclopedia of information on the Internet – lists at least 142 other sites, but rates Facebook – with more than 175 million active users worldwide as of March 24 – as the most popular social network, followed by MySpace and Twitter.
Technology is contributing new nouns and verbs to our lexicon. Google, as the name of an online search engine, is a noun; but it’s a verb describing the act of looking for information (as, “I googled that guy who sells red widgets.”). As a member of Twitter, you’re a Twitterer. The brief 140-character-maximum messages you send are “tweets.” You can “tweet” from your Blackberry using Tweeterberry software. But if – like me – you’re nervous about using this new technology, you have “TwitterJitters.”
OK. Back to our texting teenagers. These future businessmen and women are growing up with “social networking” as a routine part of their lives. “Networking,” for them, will be equal-parts “social” and “business.” To do business with this next generation of customers, you’ll need to meet them on their homeground.
Example: The Mars candy, Skittles, has created a new Skittles.com home page, featuring content created by consumers. A Wall Street Journal reporter calls it “the closest embrace of social media yet by a mainstream marketer.”
Jessica Flynn, owner-operator of Boise’s Red Sky Public Relations, gets it.
“With social networking, a conversation between two or three people can go worldwide in seconds. It crosses demographics, age groups, and technology-savvy industries. It expands your reach and influence in ways not possible before,” she said.
Business implications? Facing car problems, Flynn tweeted friends to find a reliable mechanic. “Within 15 minutes I had 25 responses from my peers and people in my sphere of influence.” She selected one shop to fix her car, so her social network translated into business for that mechanic.
With 1,400 people following her on Twitter, she tweets for recommendations on where to eat out, trusting friends’ opinions more than advertising. Result: profit for local restaurateurs. She cites area Realtors who have built and/or expanded their business via social networking.
Twitter, she says, “is changing our world, 140 characters at a time. News is spread at the speed of thumbs. … If a business is not involved [in networking], someone who is involved is going to eat their lunch.”
The Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce gets it. They’ve created Boise Young Professionals, spearheaded by Ben Quintana (@benquintana on Twitter), “to give talented young professionals a place to showcase their ideas and skills.”
Caution: Integrating social networks into business marketing strategies still is a developing process, according to Kathy Baughman, principal in Comblu, a Chicago company specializing in community-based marketing. In this area, ComBlu works with Boise-based Scott Peyron & Associates on social media programs for clients.
“Companies are trying to figure out how to integrate social networking into their marketing mix, what expectations they can have for business results,” Baughman told me this week. “Social networking has to relate to other things the organization is doing, otherwise you’ve got a bunch of dueling initiatives, and you’re just confusing your market. What we’re seeing now is that organizations want to press the ‘pause’ button and look at ‘how we make this work in an over-all integrated program?’”
Added perspective on the still-new social networking phenomenon comes from Alicia Ritter, president of Ritter Consulting in Boise.
“I think ‘newness’ sometimes gives things a disproportionate sense of importance,” she says. “The basis of any business communication question should still be, ‘What are we trying to accomplish? And how can social media, or other communication tactics, push us closer toward our desired end result?’
“I see this as but one tool in the toolbox,” she says. “I think time will tell if it’s a sledge hammer or a screwdriver.”
Wise words. But considering the warp speed at which the networking concept is blurring the lines of connection between “social” and “business,” I come down on the “sledge hammer” side in imagining the ultimate business potential of this exciting new technology.

Steve Ahrens is the retired president of the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry and a former political editor of The Idaho Statesman.

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