History is repeating itself as the powerhouse known as Facebook is now the virtual social club and Internet hub that AOL once was.

In 1993, I received my first email address during my time as an undergraduate student at McGill University. At the time, the Internet was just beginning to flourish as individuals like myself were drawn to this new form of communication. I often used a web browser called Mosaic which was out long before the first version of Internet Explorer was released. It was easy to use and laid the groundwork for what was to come.

One common problem that people had back then was finding ways to connect to the Internet. I had the University’s tech department to offer some support in getting my computer hooked up but as a commercial entity, the Internet still had a long way to go. The average potential Internet user, that is, consumers who owned computers, didn’t have an easy way to access this emerging technology called the “world wide web.”  These users would often get their local phone company to explain to them how to connect a modem and fill in the appropriate form fields in the network settings on their computers. I assure you that most people had no clue how to do this, even the tech support people. This lead to a lot of frustration back then.

Enter: CompuServe

CompuServe was the first major commercial service to provide easy access to the Internet. They made a valiant effort to let consumers connect to the Internet in a more intuitive, or at least automatic way. The system’s ease-of-use helped the company gain massive numbers of clients.

CompuServe Becomes America Online

America Online (later shortened to “AOL” in their branding and marketing) purchased CompuServe to rapidly increase its market share and all of the perks that came with such a maneuver.

At its peak, over 30 million people had subscriptions to AOL. It was used for email, as a social tool, and as a massive marketplace. The e-commerce aspect of AOL became a large part of its usefulness. Users would log in, check their email, play in chat rooms, get personal one-on-one advice, and then use the marketplace to make purchases (or at the very least, use AOL to search for reviews and e-commerce websites to buy products).

AOL as a Social Club

AOL allowed people – friends, relatives, strangers, ex-girlfriends, classmates, work colleagues, you name it – to socialize. The exponential growth of chat rooms probably would not have happened if it weren’t for AOL’s massive influence, ubiquitous nature, and ease of use. The same could be said for instant messaging. The ability to easily send private messages to your friends was incredibly useful. Each AOL user was allowed to create a profile, not unlike current profiles, but in a much more basic way. People would announce their statuses by continually editing their profiles. As an AOL user at the time, I can assure you that the first thing people did when they came across your name in a chatroom or an email was to look at your profile.

The Shift to Facebook

I’m jumping ahead somewhat and leaving parts of this story out, such as the rise and fall of Friendster (Facebook’s predecessor), for the sake of brevity.

In 2004, Facebook started as a way to let college students (the consumers) socialize online. The website eventually grew beyond its initial boundaries and allowed individuals in from all walks of life to use it. The site currently has several hundred million users.

Similar Concepts

AOL was meant to be a closed system that would make it easy for people to access the Internet. Facebook assumes you have access to the Internet to take advantage of its service. Although the origins are different, their end product are very similar. You can think of AOL is a generation one and Facebook as generation two. Nonetheless, the parallels between AOL and Facebook are noteworthy. Conceptually and functionally, both systems grew to become extremely influential.

• Rapid growth in the millions of users (I believe that Facebook has many more users than AOL in large part because it’s free, as opposed to AOL which carried a monthly fee)
• User-centric concept
• Very easy to use
• Helps to initiate relationships and socializing
• Functions encourage relationship building and maintenance
• Clean, user-friendly design and layout
• Status/profile changes
• E-commerce (AOL shopping vs. emerging Facebook stores – many people want to make purchases right from their Facebook accounts)

One difference between the two systems is that Facebook makes it easier to have a “closed” circle of friends. You can limit who sees what you write, your photos, and videos, likes and dislikes. With AOL, you could simply ignore people you didn’t care about but it wasn’t possible to have a long lasting “club” of your friends.

Downfall

As with all things Internet, AOL feel and Facebook will eventually tumble as well. Facebook is still in growth mode so it obviously remains to be seen how long it will take for it to be toppled by the next “big thing” that emerges thanks to our rapidly evolving Internet and digital communications world. Make no mistake – Facebook will cede its reign to another entity, it’s just a matter of time, although I do recognize that the longer one stays with it, the harder it is to migrate to a new system (consider your photo uploads, established social network and overall investment of your time). With 400 million users, it is now 10 times the size of AOL at its peak so don’t expect a rapid change away from Facebook in the near future.

What’s Next?

Facebook has had many issues with privacy and  as such, a number of Facebook alternatives (such as Disapora) have been launched or are in the making that do no intend to have similar issues.

Dear Business World: Stop obsessing over Twitter, Facebook, and Blogging. Chances are, it’s not for you and your company loses credibility as you try to keep up with what you don’t understand.

I’m going to tell you what most marketers will NEVER tell you. I do that a lot because I believe in providing the honest truth, with integrity. Here are statements that I hear every single day from clients:

“I need Facebook.”
“I need Twitter.”
“I need a blog.”

You know what I say? No. You. Don’t. Feel free to create an account to show you’re there but understand that maintaining social media accounts is typically very time consuming.

Cheap & Easy

Not only do most companies still not understand what these mean to the expansion of their business, most have no idea how to harness them to increase visibility, branding, leads and sales. So why does this persist? It’s cheap and easy to set up Facebook and Twitter accounts. The thing is, most businesses don’t know what to do with them once they get them started.

High Abandonment Rates

To run a blog, Twitter or Facebook account means you have entered the world of generating new ideas and content creation. That’s right – content creation. After all, nobody cares that you announced on your Twitter account that you now have a Facebook account. Think about that. Who cares? Do YOU care when someone else makes such a banal announcement? Of course not. People want to read fresh, relevant, interesting, educational, and entertaining content. That’s what the merger of social media and business is all about.

For business uses, social media is a relationship-building process tool, not a one-shot deal. Now paying someone to take care of these for you is going to be costly in most cases and the potential return on investment is going to be difficult to measure. There are high abandonment rates because creating compelling content takes time, effort, skill, and consistency which relatively few people have.

Should You Cancel Your Accounts?

Now get real. How much time do you have? Can you really spare your time? I doubt it. Are you creative enough to generate new ideas and keep up seemingly “forever?” Most importantly, do you have something to say? Really – think about. Do you have something to say that will be of interest to people on a consistent basis. And by “something to say” I don’t mean Tweets like “had lunch, have heartburn, damn McD’s,” because nobody cares. Rather, your readers are more likely to want to read “McD’s has a new website that allows them to do XYZ with clients. Here’s my analysis as to why it will work well for the company.”

Attention Business Owners!

Just because people are telling you that you need to be on Facebook, doesn’t mean anything. Facebook is useful as a social tool because people “play” on it all day and build relationships. Most small businesses don’t have time for that and that’s OK. There are much better ways to generate leads and increase sales for many businesses. Besides, the “worst that can happen” is that you look stupid, with that Tweet you sent out 4 months ago (that no one saw because you have 0 followers) that people see when they click on the link from your website that encourages people to “follow us on Twitter!” with no apparent reward for doing so.

I’m sorry for being somewhat blunt on this topic but enough is enough. Stop listening to people who just want your money (bad marketers) and friends who don’t know anything about your marketing strategy or the number of resources you have to maintain what they are suggesting you do.

There is no one size fits all to Internet marketing. There are a number of blog posts and articles giving reasons for using Twitter for business. There are books being written on the subject. I have yet to see any compelling evidence whatsoever that says every business needs this. Does every online business need SEO? Yes. Do they need pay per click (PPC)? Possibly. Do they need an email marketing campaign strategy? Probably. Do they need Twitter? Probably not.

Who is Your Target Market?

I go on and on about this all the time so forgive me if I sound like a broken record. Blanketing the world with “marketing” via Facebook and Twitter isn’t exactly the new way of thinking about ROI-based online marketing. (Trust me – I’m writing a book on the topic!). You need to reach out to where your target market clients are and go after them there. If you’re going to run a blog, you need to make sure that the people you’re writing it for are going to read it.

There Are Ways to Get a Social Media ROI

What should you do with your account? There are ways to make them look busy if you really want to go that route. I’m not going to list them right now, as that’s typically what I get paid to do and it’s not the goal here. In this article, I just want to get the message across so business owners can breathe a sign of relief and focus on running their businesses. Perhaps more in the future. For now, just consider my words of wisdom on the topic and they can help your business not look laughable.

We’re in the midst of a recession and many people are looking to join business groups to try and drum up sales. But with all of the Internet’s business networking opportunities, are offline business networking organizations still needed?

The world’s largest business networking organization is the famous Business Network International (BNI). BNI groups are everywhere. Pick up a newspaper in any major city and you will find invitations to join these groups in your local community. Use a search engine with “your location” and “bni” as search terms and you will probably find one nearby.

A second offline, real world business networking type of group is your local or regional Chamber of Commerce. These groups are similar to BNI groups in that they are meant to promote local businesses. They are also commonly referred to as a local Board of Trade.

A third type of business group is the private business networking group. These are run by companies and they often search for business people with specific criteria (such as executives with higher salaries, companies that reach minimal financial brackets, sales representatives who bring in over a million dollars in sales per year, and so on). In the next part of this article, I will focus on this type of offline business networking group.

Let’s Get Going! (or Not)

I was called by Marcie Balaban, a “qualified motivational sales expert” (as stated on her website) . She runs a company in Montreal called Let’s Get Going. This was a cold call and while I usually get rid of telemarketers within seconds of answering the phone, I was struck by her enthusiasm. She told me that there were many people in her business group who were either looking to buy into my services or had many connections to people who would be interested. I have to re-iterate that her enthusiasm got the best of me and so within a few days I met with her and paid the fee (about $1,000, although now it’s much higher), and I was ready to roll.

The Gamble

It’s important to note that this was the first time that I ever paid anything to anyone to generate leads. Read that last sentence again. I didn’t need this service. I’m an accomplished, effective SEO and Internet marketing expert, and I’ve been able to keep my companies very busy for years. Based on what was promised, I figured that it would be easy to make back the fee as well as the time it would take out of my schedule to network through this organization. However, I do recognize that it was a gamble.

Networking Group Review

Here’s my experience from the Marcie Balaban Let’s Get Going business networking group. Please note that this was heavily edited as I do not intend for this to be a “trash the organization” type of blog post. Take this part as a case study based on my experience.

PROS

• Sales: There were clearly some people who made sales and hence the ever-important return on investment (ROI).
• Meeting New People: It felt good to meet new people outside of the office. Many of the people were generally friendly.
• Longevity: Some people had been with the group (or at least a business associate of Marcie’s) for a long time which indicated some stability.
• Quality of People: I found that some of the people I met were very good at what they did. A small handful were the equivalent of me in the sense that they really knew their stuff within their industry or specialty. I liked that a lot.
• Clicking: I clicked very well with one person who was in my industry but not a direct competitor.
• Location: The meetings took place in offices that were fairly close to my own office which meant I could save travel time.

CONS

• Quality of Businesses: Most of the people I met were “one-man shows” and small mom-and-pop type shops with little money to spend on Internet marketing and few connections to people that did have money.
• Lack of People: Aside from a few new people coming in from time to time and aside from the first couple of weeks of membership, the entire Let’s Get Going process was to get me to meetings every 2 months or so, where I would meet the same people over and over. Approximately 80% of people at a given meeting were the same ones I had met at previous meetings, and most were very small businesses with little money and fewer connections.
• No ROI: I did not close one deal with a member of the group but spent a significant amount of time giving a lot of free advice to people who would never pay my consulting rate, or who asked me to spend time writing a detailed proposal and then never returned my calls or emails after I sent it (or worse, would tell me at meetings that they were going to approve it soon and then never did).
• That Suckered Feeling: In the end, when I had a more clear view of what had happened to me, I saw it as essentially being the equivalent of a telemarketing company that gets people to join, with not much to offer me. At the last meeting I attended, a handful of new members were attending their first meeting and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. It was like I was stuck in this dead-end business group and I had a feeling of “oh look at these new suckers… too bad they are probably going to learn the hard way like I did.”
• Lack of Internet Use: Aside from poorly written emails (often full of errors such as my name and companies being misspelled, dates/location/time errors, etc), there was no clear attempt to use the Internet that I could see.
• No Infrastructure: I got the overall impression that this business group primarily focused on Let’s Get Going making money, with no visible investment in infrastructure. The lack of Internet use is part of that, as are the fulfilment issues noted below.
• Complaint Sessions: I didn’t enjoy the complaint sessions. After a while, there were many people who expressed their disillusionment with the lack of success in the group and they would whine about how they weren’t meeting the people they were told they would, making the sales they were lead to believe would happen, and how they felt they were ripped off. While I may have felt the same, I didn’t enjoy coming from my positive thinking and upbeat office to an atmosphere of negativity.
• Lack of Fulfilment: This is posssibly the worst part of my business networking experience. I can’t say for sure but this probably wouldn’t happen in a Chamber of Commerce or a BNI meeting. So here it is, in addition to the fee, I was asked to sign a contract. The contract stated that I would receive a number of features. Unfortunately, almost none of the features that were listed in the contract were fulfilled.

The following is a brief summary based on the Let’s Get Going contract:

1. Weekly call or email with a lead: I received 2-3 right in the beginning (out of a possible 52 total for the year).
2. Weekly follow-up: This happened once or twice (out of a possible 52).
3. Weekly calls logged: None (out of a possible 52).
4. 52 minimum planned introductions: Based on business cards gathered, I met about 35-40 people over the year.
5. Company goals sent out: No.
6. “Monthly meetings to build longterm relationships”: I had 7 meetings (out of a possible 12 for the year). That comes to about $160/meeting. (Basically, I paid about $100/hour to sit and listen to small business owners give their pitch over and over.)
7. Group meetings with presidents: This happened once in a while if you really stretch it and mostly include the very small business owners who attended the “monthly meetings.”
8. “Extensive follow-up” for these meetings: Not even one follow-up.
9. Sales coaching: I specifically requested this right from the start and it never happened. To me this was a great aspect of the contract and it was something I really wanted. I asked about setting it up on 3 occassions but there was never any sales coaching. That alone could have been worth the price but I didn’t get any whatsoever.
10. Company profile emailed to at least 100 companies: No.
11. Telephone tips (“How to speak better on the telephone”): No.
12. A Copy of “Marketing Your Greatest Asset… You” written by Marcie herself: Despite repeated requests for a copy, I was never given one. When I pointed that out one final time at the end of my year, Marcie refused to give me a copy since it was the end of my membership and I wasn’t renewing.
13. The list goes on…

As can be seen from the above, almost every item in the contractual obligations list was not fulfilled. This left me with a feeling of being ripped off (among other negative feelings…).

Questions to Ask Before Joining a BNI Type of Group

Does your business website or Internet presence reflect what you do?
Ultimately you join business networking groups (online and offline) for a source of referrals. If your website isn’t up to the standard it should be, then you should take action to get it there before joining a group. It is naive to think that the first thing people will do after they meet you is call. Before they do, they will look you up online to see how legitimate your company and its reputation appear. If you’re going to join a networking group, make sure you are well represented online. A lot of people will go back to the office and talk about you with their boss. Their boss will then want to see your website. Make sure yours reflects your company.

What do you sell?
If you sell support products like printing and promotional products, I don’t see how you can make much money in these groups. There are so many of those types of businesses in these groups. I came across far too many printers in the group I joined and from speaking with various printers who compete with each other in other offline business networking groups, I can’t see the ROI potential.

Is the investment justified?
Think about what return on investment you can reasonably anticipate based on the fees for joining. If you sell products that cost very little, you will have to sell a lot. For example, if you sell pencils, it will take you a lot longer to make your money back than say, if you sell photography equipment.

Do you have the time?
Consider how much your time is worth. A time commitment plays a large role in these groups. If you’re already very busy and you can’t send a sales rep, it may not be ideal for you. Some groups make attendance mandatory. Others make it compulsory to have a new lead each week, meaning that you need to spend time speaking to contacts and seeing if they are interested in being pitched.

Who do you need to meet?
Think about your target market. From my own experience and after speaking to a number of people who are BNI and Chamber of Commerce members, there seems to be a consensus that you are going to meet mostly the same people all the time with new faces showing up from time to time. That means you will hear the same information pitched over and over again. Will these people be offering services that you and your business associates need?

Can you speak to current members?
Ask to speak to several members before joining. Perhaps a mix of someone who has been in it for 3-6 months and another individual who’s been involved for a year or more. Additionally, consider what industry they are in and ask whether or not they believe your industry could benefit in that particular group.

Will someone help me with my pitch?
In my business networking meetings, I found that most of the people in the group give poor quality pitches. I found it rare that anyone’s pitch clearly explained what they did, much less compel people to hire them or tell their friends and business associates about them. If you’re going to join a business group, make sure someone is there to coach you on how to give better pitches. In my experience, many group members didn’t even understand what other people are pitching. I know that for a fact since they would often lean over and ask me “what is that guy selling…?” It’s just like what I always say about having a persuasive website, that is, clearly explain what you do and how you can add value to others.

Can you attend a complimentary meeting?
Attend a meeting before you join. See what it’s like. What kinds of industries are represented at the meeting. Consider how it feels to be in attendance. Friend and fellow marketer Jeff Shore recently commented that he stays away from any business group that feels cult-like. I would tend to agree.

Networking & The Internet

From my perspective, joining a privately run business networking group was beyond a complete waste of time. I began thinking about what could have been done to bring people together using the Internet and digital methods to get more out of such an organizations.

One of the main drawbacks in the group that I joined was based on a lack of communication tools. I don’t know a lot about how these groups are typically run but what I don’t understand is why there wasn’t more use of the Internet and website? I think that there should be a username and password assigned to each member where people could see who else is in the group and what services they offer.

Aside from this type of directory, there should be a members-only message board and forum on the website that contains a list of all 5 à 7 parties, upcoming meetings, and so on. Social networking and business networking has moved online and the failure to take advantage of that as the organization grows is simultaneously short-sighted and almost a disservice to members.

Many small business owners feel out of touch with technology and online social networking opportunities such as using LinkedIn. I could have given a talk to educate members on how they could use social media to their advantage.

Will Business Networking Groups Fail?

If networking groups are going to continue to be useful, they need to adapt. Businesses no longer operate in a vacuum. If you want to see who the competition is in just about any industry, it doesn’t take long to find out who’s out there thanks to the Internet. One can no longer assume that if they attend a meeting that they will be viewed as the best game in town and people will automatically buy from them just because they’re in the same group.

What People Want
Just like sales everywhere else, supply, demand, and pricepoint will remain major determining factors as to  whether or not people will buy from you in these groups. If you’re selling an inexpensive service, it will probably be easier to make the sale. On the other hand, there may be multiple people selling the same service in the group. Remove the risk, make it cheap and people will be interested.

Adapting to Technology
Internet technology makes it significantly easier to network in a controlled situation. By controlled I mean that you can look for whatever is useful to you whenever you want and reach out to people as needed. Contrast this with the more contrived, forced meeting of people at networking group meetings.

Awkward Feelings
At least initially, the Internet also cuts done on obvious uncomfortable feelings you may experience when being in the group. For example, one person in my group did a particular type of work that someone else did and essentially asked for a job. When the person looked into the work, he found that it was far below the standard that he was accustomed to. This lead to “all kinds” of awkward feelings when they would meet. Someone else pointed out that they felt awkward knowing that they generated far more income and that their business was much more successful and stable than some of the other members. The Internet removes that degree of awkwardness to some extent. As more people realize that, they may be more likely to stick to Internet networking.

How to Network Online

This is far more complex than what I will write here but simple ideas can go a long way in some cases. Get your website optimized for search engines and make sure it’s useful to visitors, then join LinkedIn, start a blog, comment on other people’s blogs, join Twitter, and become active at these activities on a continual basis. I know that most people won’t have time do get heavily involved but if you do have some time to spare, I suggest at least reading what’s out there and make connections as needed. By targetting your connections, you may get more out of the Internet than you could from offline networking.

Concluding Remarks

In sum, business networking groups are moving online and failure to take advantage of that fact may prove harmful in the long run. I joined a business group with the best of intentions and to my surprise, it became a very disappointing experience. Based on my experience, the group I joined was experiencing rapid growth but the lack of investment in appropriate support, clearly defined goals, use of the Internet, and unfulfilled features were all cause for leaving the group. I’ll have to chalk this one up to experience.