Social Networks: an Uneven Value

Those who follow Freightdawg.com know I'm a major believer in use of social networks for business.  I especially like LinkedIn as a way to broaden my contacts and strengthen my ability to gather information and experiences on topics of my choice.

Some of the ways I use LinkedIn include:

1. Making contact with people of similar interests to me.

2. Contact with people whose interests and perspectives are different than mine but have input on a subject I have interest in.

3. For researching subjects that are beyond my experience and contact base.

4. For information and input on subjects I want to write about on Freightdawg.com.  One classic (classic!) example of this is an article I did on Sarbanes-Oxley.   I was interested in what impact Sarbox had on logistics.  Using LinkedIn "Answers", I got a tremendous response from software consultants, academic folks, logisticians, bankers and others.  Truly impressive.   What was even more impressive (and surprising!) was that I instantly had a new set of powerful contacts I didn't have before.  That was an epiphany to me. 

LinkedIn also caters to job search for professionals by listing positions and recruiting opportunities on-line.  For a fee, recruiters can privately contact professionals who are open to such contact.   Because this contact is voluntary, and discrete, many executives find this a comfortable and private way to "ping the market" for new opportunities.

Then there is Facebook.com

Having seen the value of what social networks can do for me, I am truly stumped by the difficulty my brother Harry has had attempting to use another network, Facebook, for his business in executive search. Harry runs one of the most successful executive search firms in the  e-commerce space. Marketingheadhunter.com. 

Harry's business in e-commerce recruiting targets young 25-35 year old professionals as an ideal candidate base.  Facebook is a mix between LinkedIn's professional network focus and MySpace's purely social functionality. Because candidates in Harry's bandwidth also frequent Facebook, one would think Facebook would be an ideal place to integrate.  Apparently Not So.

Harry's gmail contact base consists of 4600 contacts.  Facebook has functionality to allow importation of your gmail contacts as well as to invite them to join Facebook.   When Harry tried this, Facebook not only barfed on the attempt, he got a notice permanently banning him...no discussion.  All he did was try to use existing functionality to invite his already known contacts to join a network that gets thousands of new users daily.   I am assuming Harry's voluminous contact importation triggered a spam filter.   What is interesting however is the "no discussion" angle. 

"Lack of customer service and business logic can be a crippler to using a social network as a scalable business enabler." 

Anybody who has ever had an issue with Facebook will find there are no phone numbers.  You can't "talk" to anybody.  My experiences with Google are similar.  Don't set off their algorithms with regard to SEO or perceived click fraud.   Great tools...but with great power to both positively and negatively influence business. 

Harry's story is not unique, but he is making some noise about it.   Other blogs as well as news channels are starting to pick up on the fact that people need ways to efficiently deal with service and marketing issues within the social network and search engines of the web.   Go Here to read the rest of this story.  This is getting interest from everybody from Ariana Huffington to Robert Scoble.

I am not concerned about banning spammers and warnings for "spam-like" behavior.  But lets put a business brain behind the business.  The "Big Brother" fear gets triggered when reason loses to an algorithm. Customers also lose when those answering the phone have neither the experience nor the power to do anything about the problems they hear about.

The only advice I can give is that with Facebook being increasingly banned by business servers, whether Facebook is truly a potential marketplace for business networking remains to be seen.

Eric

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Comments

[Marketing Headhunter]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the coverage. As I have stated on other blogs regarding this situation, all I did was follow the instructions on the Facebook UI to invite my current contact list to join. Facebook never informed me of a limit.

My understanding is that technology writer Robert Scoble has 4200 Facebook contacts — and last week, Mr. Scoble described Facebook as "the new Rolodex" and hyped its click-to-call compatibility with the iPhone.

But this isn't about Scoble. I can think for myself. You know that.

Facebook's email address inhaler slurped up every single Gmail address I had on file — which just happened to be 4600 and change. Facebook even served up hundreds of photos of my contacts who were already members.

Honestly, it appeared to me as if everything was cool when I hit SEND. It was only when Facebook's customer service rep gave me the boot in a misspelled email that I realized that I had been "F'd" -- permanently.

If Facebook had given me a limit, I would have obeyed it. No problem. I am a member in excellent standing on several online communities and social networks.

Kind regards,
Harry

[Eric]

Harry, "at the end of the day" I think it may turn out that facebook is a flash in the pan, similar to twitter and pownce, whose value may be debatable as of late.

What I would love to know going forward is whether you find facebook a legitimate channel to your target audience...and if indeed, you find this a relevant channel for recruiting.

Eric

[trucking software]

Hi

I have really found that social networks do help in to grwo network and people's contact. We have been using it to recuit young talents too