Archive for April, 2011

America: A Nation of Permanent Freelancers and Temps

April 1st, 2013 by jeremy

America: A Nation of Permanent Freelancers and Temps.
 

 
The debate over telecommuting that Yahoo has spurred raises an important issue, but it’s not simply about workplace flexibility. It begs questions about the fundamental nature of work itself. By 2020, more than 40 percent of the US workforce will be so-called contingent workers, according to a study conducted by software company Intuit in 2010. That’s more than 60 million people.

We are quickly becoming a nation of permanent freelancers and temps. In 2006, the last time the federal government counted, the number of independent and contingent workers—contractors, temps, and the self-employed—stood at 42.6 million, or about 30 percent of the workforce. How many are there today? We have no idea since 2006 was the last year that the government bothered to count this huge and growing sector of the American workforce.

Following the recent economic downturn, the employment rate has recovered at a frustratingly slowly pace, except in one area: temporary, contingent, and independent workers. Between 2009 and 2012, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of temporary employees rose by 29 percent. A survey of the 200 largest companies found that temporary workers represented, on average, 22 percent of their workforce, and that percentage is growing. Workers from all different industries (not just tech) are discovering that they’re able to be productive outside of the corporate office and without a long-term employer. At my company, NextSpace, we provide membership to contingent and independent workers from industries as varied as marketing, law, media, accounting, entertainment, construction, art, architecture, and healthcare, along with hundreds of programmers and developers.

The forces behind this sea-change are many: the rapid adoption of mobile technology, ubiquitous internet access, and a general sense of malaise powered by the vague yet nagging notion that we’re just not meant to work all day sitting in a cubicle. Add to that the waste of time, energy and brainpower that commuting engenders, and it becomes apparent that our definition of “workplace” will never be the same. It may seem like a tug of war between companies and workers, but in fact they share common goals: using technology and mobility to maximize productivity, innovation, and well-being.

Given these trends, companies need to proactively create what I call “approved workplace ecosystems” that will likely include the corporate campus, home office, co-working spaces, the corner coffee shop, client/vendor sites, or any place with a decent WiFi or 4G signal. But a real ecosystem is about more than just a collection of places. It’s about the norms, the culture, and the vibe that knit these places together.

At NextSpace, we foster a culture and community among these independent disaggregated workers by creating common ground. Brown bag lunches and informal lectures bring people together over ideas. Member happy hours bring people together over food and drink. And when all else fails, our community curators often literally drag people together based on common personal or professional bonds (the community March Madness pool works, too!)

Traditionally, being self-employed used to come with a social stigma; you were self-employed if you couldn’t get a “real job.” Work was inconsistent and so was the pay. Today, the opportunities for contingent, project-based work are exploding, as is the development of tools that allow people to work independently across industries like software, design, marketing, legal services, architecture, healthcare, and engineering.

As this trend accelerates, problems will arise since the current system is heavily geared toward people working in conventional ways. Those who have full- or part-time work with established companies receive a regular paycheck, employer-sponsored benefits (if they’re lucky), and get a tidy IRS W-2 form at the end of the year for taxes. What people find when they leave the system is a confusing, byzantine, and slightly scary world of health insurance, taxes, pensions, and regulations.

Like it or not, companies and the systems that serve them are going to have to change because the workforce evolution is already underway.

This post originally appeared on Quartz, an Atlantic partner site.

Jeremy Neuner is the CEO and cofounder of NextSpace, a company that builds co-working communities. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book The Rise of the Naked Economy due out in July. All posts »

America: A Nation of Permanent Freelancers and Temps.

Posted in Jeremy's Blog

Coworking – Not Just for the Early Adopters Anymore

March 28th, 2013 by rebecca

Last week 5 NextSpace teamsters, 1 baby, and one daddy of the baby, attended GCUC, the Global Coworking Unconference Conference. There were close to 300 people, and over 100 spaces represented. The conversation moved from Steve King (not THAT Steve King), sharing that coworking has crossed the chasm and is now a mainstream workplace option around the globe, to Benjamin Dyett from the Grind sharing that coworking is not just for the startup crowd, but for established professionals and can, in fact, be extremely profitable, to Chris Mach from AT&T, discussing how the tools, policies, and physical environment for corporations is changing rapidly, and coworking is an option that is on the table for the first time.

At one point early on, the conference felt deflating – the venue was cold, the lighting was bad, and some of the content was repetitive from last year. Fortunately, things turned around after that, and ultimately the conference left me feeling really excited and inspired, and particularly proud of what we have created here at NextSpace. We are the largest coworking company in the country, but have managed to retain a high level of authenticity at each of our spaces, despite our size. For this, I credit Jeremy Neuner, our CEO, for instilling and continually reiterating a really strong and awesome culture. “Take your job seriously, but not yourself,” and “You’re doing a helluva job, don’t f**k it up” (with a wink and a smile), feature prominently in our daily lives.

One thing that stood out at the conference, was the amount of give and take, and the caliber of attendees. Even the newbies had a lot to contribute! I had a wonderful conversation with Mark from Plugin, a 10-day old space in the northern suburbs of Chicago. He asked if he could pick my brain, and we spent an hour reviewing his space, business model, financial model, and target audience. It was an extraordinary conversation, and I learned just as much about how a financial model can work at a small space in the ‘burbs, as Mark learned from me about best practices, things to look out for, and things to consider as he ramps up.

All in all, the messages I took away were this: Coworking is here to stay, and will only increase in quality and quantity in the coming years. The early adopters and startups are using coworking spaces, but so is everyone else, now! Corporations are also starting to really consider coworking as a viable place for their workforce. You don’t need to work at a corporate campus to be uber-productive. There is money to be made in coworking, but it needs to be planned and executed extremely carefully and should not be something you do “on the side”. Last but not least, I learned that NextSpace plays a genuinely catalytic role in the industry, helping guide best practices,  showing how one can make money and scale, and pushing the bar ever higher for the quality of the experience for our members, and the underlying importance of a strong and cohesive community. Oh, and coworking is always a good reason to wear an orange wig (photo is, from left to right, myself, Benjamin from Grind, and Liz from Link Coworking).

 

Posted in Rebecca's Blog

Community Builder Job Opening – NextSpace San Francisco at 2nd and Market! (Full Time)

March 13th, 2013 by iris

NextSpace Community Builder at NextSpace San Francisco, 2nd and Market location.

NextSpace Coworking + Innovation, Inc. is an amazing company to work for. It’s fun, vibrant, has room for advancement, and we train and develop the s**t out of you. We need some help managing our coworking community of freelancers, independent consultants, start-ups, and small businesses.  So we’re hiring a Community Builder and we’d be honored if you would consider applying.

The NextSpace Community Builder (Ns Ceebee) is part of the NextSpace leadership team and reports directly to the Community Curator. Think of it as the Robin to the Curator’s Batman. S/he coordinates the daily activities required to keep our members happy and productive, and the space running smoothly.

Duties, Responsibilities, and other Stuff You Do at This Job:

Every NextSpace employee helps to foster, facilitate, and manage the NextSpace community. We do this so that our members can create products, services, and solutions for the global marketplace. We work for our members. Everything you do as the NsCB should be done with this idea in mind.

The NS CeeBee handles all the tasks required to sign up new NextSpace members:  giving tours to prospective members, assisting new members with filling out membership applications, adding new members to our database, adding new members to our social and professional networks, and ensuring new members understand how to use and enjoy all the amenities at NextSpace.

The Ns CeeBee acts as the administrative arm of the dynamic NextSpace leadership duo. Tasks include date entry, calendaring, ordering supplies, interfacing with vendors and setting up and cleaning up for our various events. Occasional evenings and weekends are required with this job, but they really are occasional.

You are also in charge of assisting the Community Curator (your boss) with helping the ship run smoothly. This includes helping with marketing and sales, billing and financials, and any other big picture projects your Curator thinks you are up for the challenge of.

Another part of your job is finding, hiring, and training interns. You are in charge of the whole internship program, which will teach you management skills, communication skills, and be a big help to you in your day to day tasks.

Hey, every job has some not-so-sexy responsibilities. So there’s always organizing to be done, coffee to be made, messes to be cleaned up, phones to be answered, and 1,001 little details to be attended to.  The Ns CeeBee, along with the entire NextSpace leadership team, will dive into this stuff with gusto and good humor.

Qualifications:

  • You gotta like people. That’s a big one. Huge, even.
  • You’ll do really well at this job if you’re self-motivated, detail-oriented, and like to work as part of a team.
  • You are a whiz with technology, even if you aren’t aware of that yet. This job is about people, and our people are technologists so you are too! We are a Mac shop, so it’s best if you know how to use OS X, though not required. Some of our members have PCs so if you can trouble shoot a few IT issues on a Window’s device that’s a plus. We do expect though that you can write properly and professionally with a dose of sarcasm, browse the interwebs and do online research using The Google.
  • You are very comfortable and interested in social media tools. This includes Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and WordPress.
  • You like events, can help plan them and don’t mind attending or throwing a few in the evenings each month.
  • You are a creative troubleshooter who doesn’t stop until the problem is solved.
  • Multi-tasking is the name of the coworking game, so you should be able to juggle the phone, your regular tasks and the constant little things that come up by the minute with grace, thoroughness and good humor.
  • You’re a great communicator. Our members are talkative and they wanna talk to you. This is the fun part of the job. Sometimes you gotta talk around a sticky situation and you need to do so with confidence and transparency. This is the challenging part of the job.
  • We think we’re pretty interesting people (the CEO can juggle flaming torches). And we like to work with other interesting people.  So we’ll want to know what you do in life besides work.
  • A sizeable personality that adds to the mix is a plus.

This is a full time (40 hours/week) entry level job. The salary starts at $35,000 annually, non-negotiable. We offer full health benefits, an employee stock option package and have some great perks! You’ve got an exciting future here! Interested? Please send us a resume, a short statement about why you think you can totally rock this job, and a couple of fun facts about you. You can reach us at work (at) nextspace (dot) us.  And be sure to take a spin through www.NextSpace.us as well.  Have fun!

NextSpace is an equal opportunity employer.

Posted in 2nd and Market San Francisco, Job Openings

Community Builder Job Opening – NextSpace Santa Cruz! (Full Time)

March 13th, 2013 by iris

NextSpace Community Builder at NextSpace Santa Cruz.

NextSpace Coworking + Innovation, Inc. is an amazing company to work for. It’s fun, vibrant, has room for advancement, and we train and develop the s**t out of you. We need some help managing our coworking community of freelancers, independent consultants, start-ups, and small businesses.  So we’re hiring a Community Builder and we’d be honored if you would consider applying.

The NextSpace Community Builder (Ns Ceebee) is part of the NextSpace leadership team and reports directly to the Community Curator. Think of it as the Robin to the Curator’s Batman. S/he coordinates the daily activities required to keep our members happy and productive, and the space running smoothly.

Duties, Responsibilities, and other Stuff You Do at This Job:

Every NextSpace employee helps to foster, facilitate, and manage the NextSpace community. We do this so that our members can create products, services, and solutions for the global marketplace. We work for our members. Everything you do as the NsCB should be done with this idea in mind.

The NS CeeBee handles all the tasks required to sign up new NextSpace members:  giving tours to prospective members, assisting new members with filling out membership applications, adding new members to our database, adding new members to our social and professional networks, and ensuring new members understand how to use and enjoy all the amenities at NextSpace.

The Ns CeeBee acts as the administrative arm of the dynamic NextSpace leadership duo. Tasks include date entry, calendaring, ordering supplies, interfacing with vendors and setting up and cleaning up for our various events. Occasional evenings and weekends are required with this job, but they really are occasional.

You are also in charge of assisting the Community Curator (your boss) with helping the ship run smoothly. This includes helping with marketing and sales, billing and financials, and any other big picture projects your Curator thinks you are up for the challenge of.

Another part of your job is finding, hiring, and training interns. You are in charge of the whole internship program, which will teach you management skills, communication skills, and be a big help to you in your day to day tasks.

Hey, every job has some not-so-sexy responsibilities. So there’s always organizing to be done, coffee to be made, messes to be cleaned up, phones to be answered, and 1,001 little details to be attended to.  The Ns CeeBee, along with the entire NextSpace leadership team, will dive into this stuff with gusto and good humor.

Qualifications:

  • You gotta like people. That’s a big one. Huge, even.
  • You’ll do really well at this job if you’re self-motivated, detail-oriented, and like to work as part of a team.
  • You are a whiz with technology, even if you aren’t aware of that yet. This job is about people, and our people are technologists so you are too! We are a Mac shop, so it’s best if you know how to use OS X, though not required. Some of our members have PCs so if you can trouble shoot a few IT issues on a Window’s device that’s a plus. We do expect though that you can write properly and professionally with a dose of sarcasm, browse the interwebs and do online research using The Google.
  • You are comfortable and interested in social media tools. This includes Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and WordPress.
  • You like events, can help plan them and don’t mind attending or throwing a few in the evenings each month.
  • You are a creative troubleshooter who doesn’t stop until the problem is solved.
  • You don’t mind a little multitasking here and there. In fact, multi-tasking is the name of the coworking game, so you should be able to juggle the phone, your regular tasks and the constant little things that come up by the minute with grace, thoroughness and good humor.
  • You’re a great communicator. Our members are talkative and they wanna talk to you. This is the fun part of the job. Sometimes you gotta talk around a sticky situation and you need to do so with confidence and transparency. This is the challenging part of the job.
  • We think we’re pretty interesting people (the CEO can juggle flaming torches). And we like to work with other interesting people.  So we’ll want to know what you do in life besides work.
  • A sizeable personality that adds to the mix is a plus.

This is a full time (40 hours/week) entry level job. The salary starts at $35,000 annually, non-negotiable. We offer full health benefits, an employee stock option package and have some great employee perks! You’ve got an exciting future here! Interested? Please send us a resume, a short statement about why you think you can totally rock this job, and a couple of fun facts about you. You can reach us at work (at) nextspace (dot) us.  And be sure to take a spin through www.NextSpace.us as well.  Have fun!

NextSpace is an equal opportunity employer.

Posted in Job Openings, Santa Cruz

Community Builder Job Opening – NextSpace LA in Culver City! (Full Time)

March 11th, 2013 by iris

NextSpace Community Builder in Culver City at NextSpace LA.

NextSpace Coworking + Innovation, Inc. is an amazing company to work for. It’s fun, vibrant, has room for advancement, and we train and develop the s**t out of you. We need some help managing our coworking community of freelancers, independent consultants, start-ups, and small businesses.  So we’re hiring a Community Builder and we’d be honored if you would consider applying.

The NextSpace Community Builder (Ns Ceebee) is part of the NextSpace leadership team and reports directly to the Community Curator. Think of it as the Robin to the Curator’s Batman. S/he coordinates the daily activities required to keep our members happy and productive, and the space running smoothly.

Duties, Responsibilities, and other Stuff You Do at This Job:

Every NextSpace employee helps to foster, facilitate, and manage the NextSpace community. We do this so that our members can create products, services, and solutions for the global marketplace. We work for our members. Everything you do as the NsCB should be done with this idea in mind.

The NS CeeBee handles all the tasks required to sign up new NextSpace members:  giving tours to prospective members, assisting new members with filling out membership applications, adding new members to our database, adding new members to our social and professional networks, and ensuring new members understand how to use and enjoy all the amenities at NextSpace.

The Ns CeeBee acts as the administrative arm of the dynamic NextSpace leadership duo. Tasks include date entry, calendaring, ordering supplies, interfacing with vendors and setting up and cleaning up for our various events. Occasional evenings and weekends are required with this job, but they really are occasional.

You are also in charge of assisting the Community Curator (your boss) with helping the ship run smoothly. This includes helping with marketing and sales, billing and financials, and any other big picture projects your Curator thinks you are up for the challenge of.

Another part of your job is finding, hiring, and training interns. You are in charge of the whole internship program, which will teach you management skills, communication skills, and be a big help to you in your day to day tasks.

Hey, every job has some not-so-sexy responsibilities. So there’s always organizing to be done, coffee to be made, messes to be cleaned up, phones to be answered, and 1,001 little details to be attended to.  The Ns CeeBee, along with the entire NextSpace leadership team, will dive into this stuff with gusto and good humor.

Qualifications:

  • You gotta like people. That’s a big one. Huge, even.
  • You’ll do really well at this job if you’re self-motivated, detail-oriented, and like to work as part of a team.
  • You are a whiz with technology, even if you aren’t aware of that yet. This job is about people, and our people are technologists so you are too! We are a Mac shop, so it’s best if you know how to use OS X, though not required. Some of our members have PCs so if you can trouble shoot a few IT issues on a Window’s device that’s a plus. We do expect though that you can write properly and professionally with a dose of sarcasm, browse the interwebs and do online research using The Google.
  • You are comfortable and interested in social media tools. This includes Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and WordPress.
  • You like events, can help plan them and don’t mind attending or throwing a few in the evenings each month.
  • You are a creative troubleshooter who doesn’t stop until the problem is solved.
  • You don’t mind a little multitasking here and there. In fact, multi-tasking is the name of the coworking game, so you should be able to juggle the phone, your regular tasks and the constant little things that come up by the minute with grace, thoroughness and good humor.
  • You’re a great communicator. Our members are talkative and they wanna talk to you. This is the fun part of the job. Sometimes you gotta talk around a sticky situation and you need to do so with confidence and transparency. This is the challenging part of the job.
  • We think we’re pretty interesting people (the CEO can juggle flaming torches). And we like to work with other interesting people.  So we’ll want to know what you do in life besides work.
  • A sizeable personality that adds to the mix is a plus.

This is a full time (40 hours/week) entry level job. The salary starts at $35,000 annually, non-negotiable. We offer full health benefits, an employee stock option package and have some great employee perks! You’ve got an exciting future here! Interested? Please send us a resume, a short statement about why you think you can totally rock this job, and a couple of fun facts about you. You can reach us at work (at) nextspace (dot) us.  And be sure to take a spin through www.NextSpace.us as well.  Have fun!

NextSpace is an equal opportunity employer.

Posted in Blogroll, Job Openings, News

The Other Law of the Jungle

March 10th, 2013 by lydiasnider

Originally published by Global Coworking Unconference

I grew up in Western civilization, raised on Darwin’s, survival of the fittest worldview.  No matter where you are on the evolution/creation theories, his competition, bloody tooth and claw perspective has become a pillar of our cultural heritage. It has been the prevailing influence in how we’ve run our businesses.  “Eat or be eaten” and “It’s a jungle out there.”

Yes, it is a jungle out there.  And until very recently we’ve been making the nearly fatal mistake of following only one of the laws of he jungle – competition.  But nature requires balance.  For every force there is an equal and opposite force.  Yes, competition is a law of the jungle. But it is not the only law, the yin to it’s yang is cooperation and collaboration.

I first realized this a few years ago.  I had several philodendron houseplants, the broad-leafed viney things.  They were all in separate pots.  They were healthy enough, growing, but one probably wouldn’t use the word thriving.  Typical houseplants.  Then one time when I was repotting I decided to stick two in the same pot.

It went against all conventional logic.  Two plants in the same pot, a closed system with limited resources.  Following the logic of competition one should’ve killed the other off or they should’ve killed each other off.  Instead both plants began to thrive.  Both grew more abundantly than they had in separate pots.

As I thought about it, it made perfect sense. Philodendrons are rain forest plants.  You should see the Jurassic versions that grow in the jungles and even in Florida.  The jungle is a crazy jumble of plants growing next to, under, over, on – name a preposition – jungle plants are growing that way.

For quite sometime when I shared my theory that competition wasn’t the only law of the jungle people called me a Pollyanna, or said, “Yeah, but that’s not how it works in the real world.”

Well things are starting to change.  We’ve tried capitalism based purely on competion.  How’s that been workin’ for us?

Now I’m seeing more and more discussion about cooperation as a viable model for business and society.  A very thorough and insightful book on the idea of competition vs. cooperation is Spontaneous Evolution by Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman.  They explore the social and political forces that lead to our obsession with competition. And provide a very inspiring argument for tempering that focus with the spirit of cooperation and collaboration.  A must read for anyone who is into coworking

Scientific American featured a story titled, “The Evolution of Cooperation” as the cover story in the May 2012 issue. On reading this article I was especially inspired by the potential impact coworking could have on generating a cultural shift from competition to cooperation and collaboration.

Studies of bat colonies reveal that individuals who see each other or engage with each other regularly tend to help each other out. (duh)  In this case, bats who had gotten their fill of food regurgitated and shared with those who hand not had luck hunting (not that we want to take this analogy this far in our coworking spaces!)  The bats who had received the assistance remembered and returned the favor at a later date.  According to the old school law of the jungle the well fed bats should have let the other go hungry and eliminate their competition..

Scientific studies with computer simulators of large communities demonstrate there are cycles of competition and cooperation.  We’ve been on a pretty long cycle of intense competition.  My highly unscientific observations indicate that the tide is turning.  Coworking is both a result of that shift and is in a perfect position to take leadership of that shift.

We are at an amazing time.  If you are reading this you are on the frontier of this cultural shift.  Join us in Austin this year as we take it to the next level.

Lydia Snider is a Community Builder for NextSpace Coworking + Innovation.  She was an early adopter of coworking, joining NextSpace as a member almost as soon as it opened in 2008.  One of the first things Lydia did when she joined the staff was repot the plants.  Lydia is also a social media geek, constantly experimenting to discover ways to utilize social media tools to build community both on and offline and giving presentation on the topic.

Posted in Lydia's Blog, Santa Cruz

Who Luvs Ya? NextSpace Does! Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14th, 2013 by lydiasnider

Here at the Santa Cruz location of NextSpace Coworking + Innoavation we’re having a big o’ Valentine’s Day love fest.

Thank You Kiki!

Member Kiki Beach of @Hire is in Hawaii (can’t wait to have a NextSpace location there!) sent love back in the form of deeeeelicious pineapple shape butter cookies.

Just for fun we gave members a way to share what they love about coworking and coworking at NextSpace.  Here are their answers!







What do yo love about coworking? Share your comments below.

Haven’t gotten a chance to try coworking yet?  Visit a NextSpace near you!


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Posted in Lydia's Blog, Santa Cruz

Twist Sponsors NextSpace Coworking Member Happy Hour (Santa Cruz)

February 6th, 2013 by lydiasnider

We’re having a special field trip member happy hour!  Twist Women’s and Men’s Clothing is hosting a special member happy hour at their place (1364 Pacific Ave). They’ll have wine and cheese and a special 30% discount for NextSpace coworking members 4:00-5:30pm.

We’ve noticed how spiffy members have been dressing lately so here’s a fun chance to add to your wardrobe & out dress your fellow coworkers! (Not that it’s a competition, since we’re all about collaboration)

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Posted in Lydia's Blog, Santa Cruz

All In a Day’s Coworking: NextSpace Chairman Make Pancakes for Members

February 6th, 2013 by lydiasnider

NextSpace's Chairman, Kurt Grutzmacher makes pancakes for members while CEO, Jeremy Neuner, "helps".

Here at NextSpace we make cultivating community a priority.  One of our most important tools is our weekly Friday Member Happy Hour, where we encourage members to step away from their screens to connect in person.  Some our members’ best ideas have emerged at at happy hours.

Any hour can be happy hour! Especially here at NextSpace Coworking in Santa Cruz!  As is typical with bootstrappy startups the people with the biggest titles do the gruntiest work.  NextSpace’s Chairman of the Board, Kurt Grutzmacher took a break from cleaning out the closets & hauling out old furniture,and to the dumpster, oh and from acting as consultant and adult influence to the NextSpace teamto make members pancakes for a special Morning Member Happy Hour.

Member Mike Muldoon, creator of Infrno, has been dabbling in pickling in his free time and brought his blueberry jam experiment.  Functionally it is a jam and technically, because vinegar is involved it is a pickle.  Whatever it was, it was freakin’ good! He paired it with Greek yogurt and a squeeze of orange for “pop”. Seriously, the next time you have pancakes you gotta try it!

 

 

Doon waits for Nancy’s verdict on his homemade blueberry jam.

Want to be a part of this coworking community? Visit a NextSpace today.

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Posted in Lydia's Blog, Santa Cruz

Social Media: What’s the ROI?

December 16th, 2012 by lydiasnider

Is social media a worthwhile time investment, or is it vacuous busyness that creates an illusion of building your business?  Yes.  Which is it for your business? That depends, here are some things to consider.

Everybody Does Not Need To Be On Every Social Media Platform
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ Oh My!  I can barely keep up with my email inbox and now you want me to deal with all those as well?  If you’ve been to any of those business presentations on social media you’ve probably come away with one of two worries.  The presentations that cram covering multiple social media platforms into just one hour probably left you feeling overwhelmed at the thought of learning & managing all those profiles.  If you attended an in depth presentation by a specialist in a particular platform you probably felt a panic that the train to wild success has left the station and you’re left behind & will never catch up.

Social media is important.  It is the cocktail party of the 21st century.  It is where people go to discuss the events of the day, chat and engage with one another.  If you are not online, you are not at the party.  And you do not need to be on every social media site.  Different people tend to use different social media tools in different ways.  The key is to discover where your peers and customers hang out online.

Social media can be a great way to keep up with the trends in your field.  Find out where the other experts in your field tend to engage online.  Follow and contribute to the conversation.  And where do your customers engage online?  For example, I was working with a company in the kiteboarding industry.  Kiteboarding consumers (i.e. potential customers) tended to be very engaged on Facebook.  Twitter tended to be better resource for industry news. There tended to be very little interaction on Google+.

I still highly recommend checking out those presentations on social media to gather information to make an informed decision on if and how include a platform in your social media strategy.

What’s In Your Feed?
Repeat after me: “I am responsible for the quality of my social media feed.”  An objection to social media I often here is “It’s a complete waste of time, there’s nothing but garbage.”  To which I ask, “Who are you following?”  Yes, there many, many people talking about a whole lotta nuthing.  There are also many people sharing interesting & important information, profound insights and very clever wit.  I use Twitter to keep up innovation, entrepreneurship, analysis of trends & news stories and I follow a few people that just crack me up. What’s in your feed?  That depends on who you follow.

What’s the real ROI of Social Media?
Some people think social media is a complete waste of time because there is rarely a direct correlation to a business’ bottom line.  (With the exception now of Pinterest for businesses with online shopping carts).  There are 3 basic ways investment in social media adds value to your business.

1. Brand Recognition In service industries it takes 8-10 “touches” to turn a looky lou into a customer.  That can be anything from meeting in person, to connecting on different online venues.  For example, when I spoke at the September 2012 Surf Expo I was cruising the convention floor prior to my presentation inviting people to attend.  As I was chatting with one person he said, “I know you!”  He didn’t look at all familiar to me, I was wracking my brain trying to figure out where I’d met him.  Then he followed up, “I saw your article in Action Outdoor & Bike Retailer, and I’ve seen your posts in the Kiteboarding Business Group on LinkedIn.”  Not only did he come to my presentation, but he brought others as well.

2. Be the Expert Remember, social media is the big online cocktail party.  It’s one big ongoing conversation.  Engage.  Just like in real life, your passion and expertise will naturally shine through.  Just like in real life, people will start to know that you’re the person who knows about nutrition or building websites or non profits or (insert your expertise here).  Soon people will be coming to you.  Just this morning someone messaged me on Facebook wanting my insights on a kiteboarding business venture.  Do be careful to treat online conversations just like real life conversations.  You don’t want to be that person shoving your business card in everyone’s face.  Just engage in the conversation.  Be aware it does take time, just like in real life.

3. Creates Pathways Back to Your Website
Brand recognition and reputation as an expert are pretty ethereal and hard to track. One measurable return on social media investments is traffic back to your website.  If you do not have analytics on your site get them installed yesterday.  If you don’t know how people are finding your website you don’t know which of your marketing tools and posts are working.  With Google Analytics you can see how visitors move through your site and which pages tend to draw them in and which cause them to leave.

Think of social media as creating lots of yellow brick roads leading people who need your expertise, services or product back to you, The Great Oz.  One of the best ways to establish yourself as an expert in your field is to share all that expertise locked in your head. What seems obvious to you is amazingly brilliant to someone who hasn’t invested the thousands of hours in your field that you have.  Share it!  Always, always, always post first to your website then share out that link on your carefully selected social media platforms. Now you are contributing to the conversation and building your brand recognition as an expert.

When you share out a post be sure to check in on your website analytics to see which social media platforms generated the most visitors.  Also, note what kinds of posts tend to generate the most visits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Lydia's Blog, Santa Cruz

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