Remember the days when it meant you were a drug dealer if you were young and wearing a pager? The same thing went for cell phones at one point. Eventually everyone had one or the other and it became a normal thing to have. Email came about and at one point it became “uncool” to not have an email address. At this point it is no longer cool or uncool, you must have an email address if you are going to get a job.
I would argue that the same thing now goes for social network profiles. I stumbled across an article entitled “Attention Boomers: Generation Y Expects to Find You on Social Networks.” As a member of Generation Y I can definitely say that I agree with this. Whenever I touch base with a new contact, the first thing I do is look them up on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Having access to that individual’s profile helps me to learn more about them and helps me learn a little more about their personality. It also provides more of a human element. The only excuse for your company to not have your employees on Facebook or other social networks is if you are in intelligence and keeping information classified is of utmost importance.
The argument against employees having social network profiles is that new recruits should be able to interact with employees in a completely professional environment. While I agree with that, I think that it is possible to have a professional interaction over a social network. I for one do so on a daily basis. Do you think everyone in the company should have a social network profile? Do most people in your company have one?
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Coincidentally, I was just about to send you a request to connect on LinkedIn when I saw the link to your blog post in your status update on Facebook. Twitter is down at the moment, so I can't check, but I'm guessing your status is linked to Twitter. Oh, the tangled web of gen Y social networking...
The reason it's topical, though, is that not everyone agrees that they need to have a LinkedIn or Facebook profile. I gave a short seminar this week called "Introducing Web 2.0" for business, and one attendee said to me afterwards, "Okay, I know there are a lot of people on LinkedIn, but why do I need to be on LinkedIn?"
This person is COO of one of the largest cities in the Northwest next to Seattle. He is a consummate pro when it comes to dealing with people and getting big jobs done on time.
I told him something like you said above: There's no reason not to have these profiles. But that's not really much of an argument. I would rather have some data to back up that assertion. It's my next project. Find evidence that you really do need to have a profile on LinkedIn and Facebook, or that if you do, your chances of realizing career goals, business objectives, etc., are much higher.
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