It was 9:45pm, and I was standing in the middle of the accessories department at Target, trying to decide if I could really pull off a pair of earrings with faux peacock feathers. My hands were full of what you would expect from a random shopping encounter: powdered coffee creamer, a yellow toothbrush, the Slumdog Millionaire DVD, and a pair of jeans that I purchased on clearance.

It’s at times like these that you don’t really want to run into anyone. Maybe you’ve just come back from a jog and are at the register buying a pint of ice cream. Or perhaps you left the house to specifically to get away from people.

But usually it’s inevitable… yeah, I was spotted.

We locked eyes at the same time – her dragging a mid-sized piece of bright pink luggage, me still holding those silly earrings. I knew her well enough to know that we had had a couple classes together in college and that she worked at a Starbucks that I frequented. We were Facebook friends, but I couldn’t even remember her name. So as I’m standing there awkwardly, racking my brain for her name and smiling in dim recognition, I said the only thing that I could think of.

“Hey! I just saw your status update last night. You know, the one about Jon and Kate Plus Eight? Your Facebook status updates always make me laugh!”

Lame. I totally know. But how representative is this of our cultural climate right now? Relationships aren’t “official” until they’re posted on Facebook profiles. We used to send emails instead of snail mail; now we send direct messages instead of emails. We rely on Facebook to be both our event planner and birthday calendar. We are busy, connected, technologically-savvy and non-committal- the infamous “Facebook maybe,” anyone? And just as our lives fill up with appointments and meetings and coffee dates by the second, the homepage gets busier and busier to accommodate.

Social networking sites like Facebook have become a one-stop shop for relationship building and business networking alike, creating the possibility of connecting both the social and professional spheres. Rather than lament this transition or complain about the decline of human interaction (blah, blah, blah), we need to capitalize on this social phenomenon and utilize it to increase the level of personal contact between the client and business owner.

Here’s what I mean… Think about the evolution of marketing promotion strategy for a second. If we have a tool that gathers information like birth dates, employment history, activities, and interests, the question should be this – why are we not using this to our full advantage?

The demographics that these sites help portray can be used in several ways. Are there trends that we haven’t noticed before? Perhaps several of your connections are involved in the same activity or organization – is it something that could use your services? Or maybe a recurring interest among some of your “friends” is something that your business can tap into, either as a collaborative or networking opportunity. Similarly, if your business has the functionality to offer such a thing, birthdays are a good time to extend special offers – either monetary discounts or a free service.

As a freelance writer and consultant, I am debating the idea of offering a coupon for one free consultation appointment (a half hour in length) good for the month of my client’s birthday. This can be an advantage in several ways. First, the shortened appointment time, down from usually an hour, is enough to begin discussion, but sometimes not enough time to finish. Seeing this, my projection is that most clients will choose to make follow-up paid appointments. This has been the case in my regular consulting work. Secondly, the offer should also create a sense of community and identification between the client and business owner. Hopefully, this will not only keep the customer happy, but also lead to word of mouth advertising.

I hope that this opens discussion for those of you entering into the foray of social networking. What are some of your thoughts? Any ideas on how to further utilize social networking to enhance business strategies? I’d love to hear them…

About the Author:

Stefanie Bohde

Writer for hire
586.201.4935
bohde.stefanie [at] gmail.com
www.luminariumstudios.com