Communication

Communication. It’s all around us and today there are more opportunities than ever before to talk, chat, converse and get to know the consumers of our products, much less meet other consumers of the same product.

There are lots of tools for communicating with the masses, and we’ll talk about a few here.

Gmail: A Google product, Google Mail is also called Gmail. It’s billed as fast and searchable with less spam. It also flows seamlessly with Google’s other products designed for collaboration.

Twitter is a real-time network using 140-characters to share information about goods, services, roads, just about anything. Many use it to get information about current events (just about every major news outlet is using Twitter). While text messages (called tweets) are the vehicle with Twitter, you really don’t need a text-message enabled phone to be a part of the Twitter community. (We’ll get into platforms for making Twitter super easy to use later.) Those folks at Twitter are so smart, they’ve already done some thinking about what Twitter does for businesses.

Facebook. You might think it’s all for the kids, but if you really think about it, you know lots of adults who find this service to be a fun way to catch up and then stay caught up with friends and family. It’s a privately owned social networking site to which anyone 13 years or older can become a member. Think of it as a small web page you’ve customized with as much or as little information as you want. In its basic form you can add friends, send them messages, show support for causes and businesses (or be supported by a Facebook audience).

LinkedIn. Its 65 million members in more than 200 countries can’t be wrong about how useful this tool is to the busy career builder. In fact, you can think of it like Facebook for the career-oriented. The content is strictly professional, and the platform provides a means for like-minded professionals to connect, hopefully in ways that make them more productive and successful. Users have complete control over the information that’s publicly available about them and have access to discussion topics in private group settings. It’s a place many look for job listings and to find the best talent. LinkedIn is free, but with many opportunities to upgrade to premium versions.

Xing is another global networking site for professionals. It, too, provides personal profiles, groups, discussion forums, event coordination and other features. It, too, is free, though some services (such as messaging people you’re not already connected to or searching for people with specific qualifications) are available only to premium members.