I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook: I love to hate it. Frankly, I don’t have much time for Facebook. A few weeks ago, I told MSPmentor readers that I considered Facebook my social network for friendships, and LinkedIn my social network for business. But I’m starting to change my tune — at least a little.
After much debate, I finally set up an MSPmentor group on Facebook. Will I live in that group? I doubt it. But will I send updates from MSPmentor.net to the Facebook group to ensure readers are plugged into our content? Absolutely.
Why am I changing my tune? Cisco Systems’ channel team gave us a healthy reminder today that I can’t force my preferred communication methods on readers.
Instead, I have to pump MSPmentor through readers’ preferred communication pipelines. Our current MSPmentor pipelines (RSS, Twitter, newsletters, etc.) have healthy followings. Now, I’m eating crow and adding an MSPmentor Facebook Group to the mix.
As the old Burger King jingle goes, “Have It Your Way.”
MSPmentor is updated multiple times daily. Follow us via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. And subscribe to our enewsletter, webcasts and Resource Center.
Read More About This Topic
Share This Post
Posted In: Marketing
Tags: Facebook Groups | Managed Services Social Media | MSPmentor | MSPmentor on Facebook | MSPmentor Social Media
Interact: Add a Comment | Trackback Link | Permalink
Subscribe: RSS Feed
Joe – understood about the love/hate relationship…I can’t begin to tell you how many applications friends want me to join/use or whatever. Really takes away from my original purpose for using Facebook.
I still prefer LinkedIn for business, though…I tend to look at Facebook as personal, or perhaps ‘business lite’…but I can see where you’d need to establish a group there…
Jim Van
Logicomm, Inc.
http://www.logicomm-inc.com
Hi Jim: Thanks for the note. I am really torn about Facebook. I don’t want “friends” to feel as if we’re pushing MSPmentor on them, but I do want MSPs to get the content they need through the Facebook group.
So, we’ll work hard to maintain the appropriate balance — providing content to those who really want it, without becoming Facebook spammers along the way…
Joe –
Whether or not the Facebook venture will be successful I want to commend you on doing something that I wish others would do as leaders and as companies: Listen to your customers and then make a change!
You executed this swiftly and in response to a true customer desire.
If only other companies and industries would start doing the same thing we might have some real progress going on….
Hi Shane: Thanks for the note. Generally speaking, we’ll always move swiftly. And we’ll make some mistakes along the way. But we generally believe it’s better to move fast and make course corrections along the way rather than sitting still and debating our next move(s).
And yes, moving fast means listening to our audience. Thanks for reading MSPmentor and keep us posted about your own company’s progress.
You know…I struggled with it as well in the beginning. I have a couple of observations. 1) I was concerned to combine my “personal” life with my “work” life on facebook. 2) I was sure we wouldn’t see any rewards from our ConnectWise “fan” page. Net net, while there’s been a couple hiccups from the personal/work combo, all in all, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the ConnectWise partner base a bit more and putting faces with the many names I see everyday. And wow have we had a great time with our fan page. Its been a great way to extend a bit “outside” our thriving “closed” community on our Forums and let some people know about the initiatves ConnectWise is undertaking and add some levity in the process. So…go for it Joe, and I’ll be the first one to join your FB group. j.
Joe,
I’m considering creating a work only Facebook account, or an account just for my business to help create some seperation. My work facebook profile will be basically like my LinkedIn profile, but with a larger audience. My jokes about the “Sham-Wow Guy” however will be only on my personal FB page
Dave Dempsey
Manged Data
http://www.managed-data.com
David,
Good luck with that. I signed on to Facebook for just work and have everyone in my town inviting me as friends now?? Definately not a productive use of my time.
Lane: Your neighbors want you to fix their PCs… Put them all under recurring consumer contracts
Joe, I have my blog feed into my Facebook page but as I thought I was going to use it for business. I do show ppl the kinds of deals I’m working on. Then half my HS graduating class found me (I moved farther away than most) and its been some fun and some business ever since……
Stu
http://www.southernlendingsolutions.com
Update: A timely read from MSP University CIO Erick Simpson, who is trying to reduce the social media noise in his life.