Engineering Inc. - January/February 2010 - 13

Linked Weighing the benefits, potential pitfalls of social-networking applications T RanDy Lyhus he reach of the Internet’s leading social media sites—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn—grows longer and wider by the second. Just how large is the social media landscape? Consider this: If Facebook were a country, its 300 million users would make it the fourth largest in the world. Since its inception in 2006, Twitter has grown its user base by a staggering 1,300 percent year after year. LinkedIn, the network for professionals, welcomes a new user into its fold every second. millions of users—potential customers and employees—is tough for any profit-minded business to ignore. The question is how to use these tools effectively. Growing Up Young Logged Despite the wide and ever-growing net cast by these and other online applications, many engineering firms have approached the social media phenomenon with skepticism, even caution. Such hesitation is warranted. The social media universe—which also includes sites such as YouTube, Flickr and others—still is in its infancy and remains largely untested. And the technology keeps evolving. The most popular applications are socially oriented rather than business-focused. Plus, there’s the question of control, or lack thereof. “Facebook and Twitter?” asks Scott Mickle, director of marketing and business development at LandDesign in Charlotte, N.C. “As a business-to-business tool, I think they’re bogus.” Mickle is hardly alone in his thinking. Still, the promise of a network that reaches In By Gerry Donohue On Social Media 101 “It looks like we’re one of the first in the industry out of the box,” says Willmer. “Everyone in the firm is really participating, strategizing. We’re really excited about it.” Firms, for the most part, have adopted a go-slow approach to social media. Many are standing on the sidelines, waiting to see what practical uses emerge. Still other firms are trying their hands, reasoning that even a small presence on the social media scene could translate into a profit in a growing user community. Though they share basic concepts and structures, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social-networking tools also sport key differences, important for firms weighing the benefits of participation. “Facebook is all about being part of a community,” says John Zimmerman, president of eRocketFuel, a web consulting firm in Chicago. For most firms that use Facebook, he says, the goal is to build a community around a firm’s brand, field or employees. By providing interesting and entertaining information about the company, its projects, its people, or engineering in general, the firm aims to attract a following of “friends” or “fans.” Twitter, on the other hand, is all about sharing information quickly and efficiently with interested community members. Given its strict limit of 140 characters per JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2010 ENGINEERING INC. For younger generations, social media has all but supplanted e-mail as the preferred mode of online communication. Opportunistic marketers bill the technology as fresh and vibrant. What’s more, they say, these sites cost next to nothing to use and, for a nanosecond at least, are the “in” thing in today’s ever-fickle, always-on Internet consciousness. “We just started a Twitter site,” says Doris Willmer, president of Willmer Engineering, a 42-person firm in Atlanta. Initially, the company plans to use Twitter to keep customers and employees informed about new and completed projects.

Engineering Inc. - January/February 2010

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