Jason Keath has compiled an excellent list of really useful social media tools in 14 essential social media tools. There are a few that stand out for me. Doodle is a simple site for scheduling events for the benefit of teams or groups of people. I know that many programs can do this already, such as Microsoft outlook, but doodle does more. You can doodle from anywhere to virtually anything. It can even conduct polls.
Google maps is an excellent tool and still largely unused by businesses. You can integrate a map into your website to show people where your business is located and you can use it to publise an event or meeting too. Slideshare is a great little tool that’s easy to use for creating slideshows to share with colleagues or attendees. You can even add audio to make a webinar.
Facebook events is another tool I see used by lots of people but not by business, yet it’s so easy to use and so many people are on facebook already. As a business, you could build a facebook fan page and publicise your event with the facebook events application and invite your fans to attend. Meetup is another great tool I don’t see anyone talking about. The purpose of meetup is to find and join, or create your own group so you can meet up locally.
Today’s video shows you how to use meetup for business networking. You can search for groups that interest you or where you can find new customers, by postcode or city. Once you’ve found a group, meetup will show you the group name, description and how many members it has. You can then view a calendar of events and ask to join the group if it looks right up your street.
We all know how easy it can be to build a social community around you or your business. Well, now you can meet up with your community members to do some business networking, or maybe just to find new friends.
With so many new social media tools, just where do you start?
