WebWorkerDaily: "Lately, I’ve gotten a lot of my clients contacting me through Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media sites. I got a direct message from one of my clients, saying that she has a new project she wants to start on. I received a LinkedIn message from a prospective client interested in working with me. It isn’t just clients, either. I sent a direct message to a designer I’m working with in order to get a quote for a project myself.
But are there any problems that can arise from conducting business conversations through social media?"
13 comments:
I personally am very opposed to using social media applications as a form of business communication, but it's interesting to at least see someone make a case for both sides. He identifies a specific problem and how to rectify it. He says that there is a dissemination of information, and so you just have to compile it all in one place. I feel that once you introduce a social media application into your business you are creating a new stance saying that anything in that realm of social media is acceptable business. Social media can definitely be utilized in great ways for businesses, but turning it into a standard form of communication really creates issues.
I totally agree with Kevin. I think that if you are trying to get information in a professional manner/matter, you should use email. This way, you have a complete record of it and you can reference it at any time. Also, both parties will have records of the message which is key. If you need to check a piece of info, having to look at multiple places for it would be tiring and annyoing.
Another point, some social media sites delete messages after a certain time, and most if not all of them have bugs every now and then. I'm not saying email is perfect, but 99% of the time, your message goes through.
As a person who is pretty much only reachable through Twitter (and who gets tons of flack for her Twitter usage), I think it's interesting that other people use it for professional reasons. The other remarkable mention of Twitter on this blog was "Twittergate" - with the casting director making comments about auditions. The internet blurs the line between public and private to a confusing extent.
Actually, one of the clearest cases against Twitter was made by a commenter in this article; even though Twitter is useful, there is nothing like a 140 character limit to promote misunderstanding.
I actually think that communicating through social media for whatever reason can be really beneficial because social media applications are the most advanced in terms of easily accessing and communicating with other people, because the point of the application in the first place is to network and socialize and designers are constantly updating those means of communication. It might get confusing to track information but at the same time new applications like twitter can really help you when contacting a client, co-workers, etc
I find it frustrating when communications get sent to the wrong place (i.e. done through Facebook instead of email). One thing that I do is I only respond via email, so I have it all in the same place.
Another thing I deal with is emails to multiple accounts, and sometimes messages get sent to the wrong account (even worse is when I send from the wrong account — that gets really confusing). When someone sends me an email that was intended for another account, generally the first thing I will do is forward it to the correct account, and then deal with it there.
While it might be more convenient, commuicating professionally via social networking sites just seems like a really bad idea. For exactly the reasons they said, using multiple networks, and not having everyone on the same page, this just seems innefficient. Not to mention the fact that it's a lor easier to misinterpret an IM or twitter message than it is a phone conversation. From typos to sarcasm to made-up short hand, a lot can go wrong. Not to mention the fact that these websites are for SOCIAL networking! Not business networking! I don't want prospective clients contating me on facebook! That's for me to stay in touch with my friends.
Email, phone, or in person would be the way to go--and even then, email is a maybe.
I do like technology but sometimes I wish things can be more personal than an email or twitter message. There are so many technological outlets of receiving important information for business and social reasons. Now I really want to look into Gist because it would be awesome to get everything in one place instead of (like the article says) having to check every single outlet.
I certainly agree with the author when he says that instant messaging can provide a certain ease of communication, but one problem with electronic communications, beyond the mentioned lack of records, is the ease with which miscommunications can occur.
What the written word can lack, especially in instant message formatting, is tone of voice. While a good writer can establish tone I find that some forms of humor, especially sarcasm, fall flat in IM. While most business communications are factual it would be a shame if a business relationship were marred over a mistake in interpreting an other's tone. In my opinion more delicate business matters should always be handled in person, or if that is not possible, by phone or virtual conferencing.
The relationship between yourself and the receiver of the social media message are what decide whether or not this method of communication is appropriate or not. For example, your friend facebooks you to work on a shoot of theirs, given the casual relationship, that is appropriate. It is not appropriate, however, to contact a director on facebook, and direct him to a photoalbum containing your renderings for his show. Extremely unprofessional. The method with which you contact a client, colleague or employer sets the standard for how serious that interaction will be. Like many, I find social media to be a mistake for first time collaborations.
While I do not believe that many social media outlets are appropriate for formalized business or professional communication (especially if this is the first time the two parties are communicating), once a relationship has been established, sometimes Social Media provides an amazing way to disperse information quickly. For an example right here in Purnell, in some classes the location that we meet changes and the best way to figure out where to go is to post a tweet and update our FB status so that someone who has already found the class can respond to it giving you that information. Sometimes the response even will come from a professor themselves. This quick and accessible way of spreading commonly needed information should not however be used to communicate about information that is any more involved than that. As communication becomes less personal, the ability for that information to be misinterpreted rises.
There needs to be a line drawn between how you communicate with your friends and how you communicate with your business associates. I don't understand why people can't just stick to e-mail when they need to talk to people they work with--is it really that much harder than sending a Facebook message? Plus there are just innate connotations to social media; Facebook and Twitter are forums that allow people to be casual and goofy, while e-mails and phone calls are inherently more professional.
I really believe that people should loosen up when it comes to mixing "business and pleasure." Posting on someone's wall is easy and convenient for everyone, and if you want it to be private you can even leave then a note. Also if you are trying to get the word out to a large group sites like twitter and facebook makes that painless.
I don't really think it's the best idea to use social media sites for business conversations. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, it can be too public. I wouldn't necessarily want the whole world to be able to read my business conversations. Second of all, I think that it's really hard to track conversations when you are using so many different social networking sites. It is important to be able to have a record of everything that was said and agreed upon.
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