Mashable’s analysis of eMarketer’s forecasts for B2B social network marketing begins with the claim that “Biz networking on Facebook could soon supersede LinkedIn”.
I’m not totally sure about the argument - something along the lines of leveraging Facebook’s massive consumer base to increase business activity - but the prediction contrasts with some of the interviews we’ve been doing as part of the CISION.net project.
Our initial survey agreed with Mashable. 70 per cent of communicators and 74 per cent of journalists surveyed said they used Facebook for business (although the vast majority in both cases were using the network for both business and pleasure).
But the communicators and journalists that we’ve spoken to subsequently have told us that their “business” activity was mainly client promotion (for the communicators) and research (for the journalists). As for “business networking”, almost everyone felt that there was something not quite right about Facebook, that the environment’s combination of informality and disclosure meant that lines were too easily crossed.
One journalist even described a pitch that began with a PR offering commiserations on her recent divorce. Even if only to avoid such a horror pitch, best to keep in mind that the targets and tone of your online networking should be site-specific.
