Today I held a "brown bag" overview of LinkedIn at our corporate office. (Click here for a handy, albeit very in-depth, webinar recording.) I'll confess, I get enthused like nothing else when I get to teach people about the capabilities of social and/or professional networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and even the to-date anemic Google+.
-- HINT: If you prefer to post on ONE of these and have it automatically feed to the other two, FriendsPlusMe is your new best friend. If, that is, you're not fully immersed in Hootsuite already. (I use both.) --
I came back to my desk after the brown bag had concluded to find a news story touting Facebook's new content-specific news feeds. And then I came across another story announcing Google+ rolling out their improved page and profile layouts before Facebook. All this after I had just finished going over LinkedIn's recent milestones in members and their new identity as a publisher of content (in addition to if not surpassing their role in social media networking).
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This just in: all three are competing for your focus. Thunderdome of Content Marketing is in full swing, and the only question is who will come out victorious.
For my part, I have always seen Facebook as more of a casual social sharing tool with the capacity to have business-focused pages. LinkedIn I have considered to be the "Facebook for professionals," in that its overall tone and intent is more sophisticated and business- or job-oriented. Google+ has been Google's competitor for Facebook, incorporating personal profiles, communities, pages, etc., but it has taken a nice long, running start to gain any traction. (Which, based on what I'm seeing, is slowly gaining in momentum. To what end, I have no prediction to offer.)
However, those are my perceptions. The great thing about these platforms is you can make them (to varying degrees) what you want them to be. In short... content. And the developers are onto your customs and are answering with competitive gusto.
Which platform do you use primarily for your business marketing? Do you use all three? Do you find yourself on one primarily you hope will win the Thunderdome of Content Marketing?
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