(* Source: Gavin Heaton *)

While many businesses hesitate to "adopt" social media, many business people are already heavy users of social media sites. Sometimes they don't even notice it. The ubiquitous success of LinkedIn is proof that even the most reluctant technology user can be enticed into the Web 2.0 space. Clearly LinkedIn have a great value proposition:

• Allows you to:
  • advertise/demonstrate your professional experience
  • manage your personal and professional network
  • expose this network (and activate its value)
  • identify and facilitate business opportunities in your wider network
• Provides employers with:
  • easy access to categorised and location based professional profiles
  • ready source of verifiable and referenceable professional histories

And while there are many other reasons to use LinkedIn, the simple fact that many business PEOPLE use it is a great proof point for social media within a business. And for B2B, it just means that you need to clearly articulate the value proposition -- how will it impact the business, which problem will it solve and what opportunities will it open up.

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