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The online social networking landscape can be intimidating, however more and more mainstream businesses are finding valuable uses for social networking applications for marketing purposes. Independent consultants can gain significant rewards by using social networking to their advantage when building their business and maintaining contact with their client base. Utilizing social networking sites to create a professional online presence will allow you to make connections to potential clients across the globe.

Facebook is emerging as the social networking site that has viable business applications. Facebook is a useful collaboration tool for businesses, and workgroups and special interest groups can easily be created at no cost. This is an excellent way for consultants to create a community among their clients. The Events feature may be utilized to advertise events that you or your business are hosting, and let your clients have an inside look at whats up and coming. By making careful use of the different privacy and friendship circles that are available in the Facebook preferences, you can safeguard your professional reputation by ensuring that too-personal content is kept behind a veil of modesty.

LinkedIn is the social networking site specifically designed for business professionals. A LinkedIn profile allows users to post detailed information related to career history, education and experience. The opportunity exists to join groups of other professionals who work in your industry or otherwise share similar interests. There is also a question and answer feature that allows the sharing of information with other professionals, which can be a useful application for creating name recognition and showcasing your knowledge base. You can gain Expertise points by delivering valuable free advice in the Answers forum. As long as you remember that your contributions will live forever online, tied to your real name, youll do fine. Any online contributions may be more durable than you realize.

In general, any online presence is useful for search engine optimization for your business website, which can lead to increased page ranks and more visibility. Answering questions with your website address in your signature creates links to your website, which can improve search engine rankings, and also leads clients directly to your website when they read your answer and click through to find out more information about what you do.

Much more than that, however, social networking is a valuable tool for building a network of professional contacts, but with the ease of utilizing the internet as opposed to face-to-face contact. While nothing can be a substitute for face-to-face interaction, online social networking is an effective way to begin making business contacts. For some people, face-to-face networking takes some getting used to, so meeting potential contacts online can be a lead-in to an in-person meeting. Beyond the initial contact, adding a business acquaintance can cement and nurture what might otherwise have been a chance encounter. Through online networking, you can keep your name in front of that contact and build familiarity which just might translate into business down the line.

There are also many professional social utility sites that are catered towards specific professions or niches within an industry, such as LawLink for attorneys, DevBistro for programmers, or MediaBistro for journalism and media professionals. Using these sites can help you network with other professionals in your industry, which can be useful if you ever receive a consulting job that requires skills outside your area of expertise. Exchanging referrals with other professionals is another valuable way to get additional business.

Many of these niche social networking sites also have discussion forums, which is a great opportunity to exchange information or discuss industry-specific dilemmas or challenges with other talented people working in related fields. These same sites also frequently offer job boards and a place to post your resume. Hiring managers frequently search these sites seeking out talent before posting positions, so posting a detailed resume on niche sites is an additional avenue that can be used to land new assignments.

Beware, however, of offering the wrong kind of information on social networking sites. In general, if you are utilizing these platforms as a professional business marketing tool, personal information should be carefully edited. Offering tasteful, authentic, yet limited information about your personal life can make you more approachable, and can lead to new connections or build rapport when others find things about you that they share in common. Good subjects to talk about are travel, technology, books your reading, and hobbies or arts that you enjoy. Be careful of divulging any information thatmight be perceived as unflattering, because it could turn potential customers away. Be sure to block Facebook applications that might mar your professional image. Watch your status updates to ensure you dont post anything too personal, while also taking it easy on the microblogged sales pitches. Finally, its a good idea to avoid putting heavily political and religious information on your profile.

Ignoring social networking opportunities could be causing you to miss out on the following benefits:
Posting your resume
Participating in discussions and answering questions that can showcase your expertise
Keeping in touch with your referral base and meeting new potential clients
Finding out about open positions or opportunities that arent advertised
Building a network of other industry professionals with whom you can exchange referrals
Building links to your business website
Free advertising
Reaching a worldwide audience
Improving search engine optimization
Creating brand awareness

Many of these benefits are the same as those sought from traditional marketing and advertising campaigns, so why not take advantage of free and easy methods to create similar results? Using online social networking to your advantage, and perhaps employing a little guerilla marketing, will require an investment of time, but there are some independent consultants using social networking so effectively that they get a significant percentage of their business through connections made or nurtured using these applications. So get your feet wet with LinkedIn, and perhaps in time graduate to Facebook. A consistent dedication of a small portion of your time over the course of at least six months should give you an indication whether social networking will be beneficial to your consulting career.

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