The Independent newspaper has today published their UK ‘Twitter 100‘ which ranks the top media and sports celebrities, business and political leaders on the social media platform. These are all high-profile individuals who like to talk and, more importantly, people like to listen to. Twitter is only six years old and has 100 million active users worldwide, seven million of them are in the UK. These figures reflect the enormity and popularity of social media generally.

Social media is now a wholly accepted part of day-to-day life and, in an increasingly busy and hectic world, it enables us to connect with friends and contacts (globally) quickly and easily to keep people in touch with what we’re doing and to spread news. It’s actually become part of how we interact as humans – albeit a lot of this ‘interaction’ is actually, in the first instance at least, indirect!? But this goes beyond ‘social’ or personal use – it’s now extends into business in a big and important way.

The most popular business social media platform is Linkedin “The Worlds largest professional network with 150 million+ members”. I use this everyday, either at my desk or on the move via my mobile/ iPad. I can gain a valuable insight as to who knows who, what people/ companies are doing and what topics and discussions are ‘trending’ in the various sectors we work in. This is realtime information on a constant feed. I also use it to understand target contacts/ companies more fully – you can learn a lot of useful information very quickly.

According to Sir Francis Brown “Knowledge is power“. He is also quoted to have said “By far the best proof is experience“. Both are relevant here.

You will probably know by now that I endorse social media, especially in business. My views on the ‘value’ of social media are continually growing in support, although it can sometimes be difficult to ‘measure’ this value in real terms. Its simple; the more you use it, the more value you will generate from it. For me Social Media is an important and necessary channel to engage with people and promote your individual/ business profile within your sector(s). I can categorically state that introductions to new clients and opportunities have been generated directly from social media – that is powerful.

Its addictive, its important and it does add value to business, especially in raising your profile and with developing new business relationships/ generating work.

Having said all that, the real work is in realising physical connections and then doing business. On that note; I’m off to mipim next Tuesday-Friday to do some global networking face-to-face…watch this space for more on that…

Click here to see my Linkedin profile.