Social networking and Social media sites are all the rage lately. The blogosphere buzzes with them every day and there are suddenly droves of people who have tagged themselves as a new media expert
But for management consultants, or any type of consultant, - is it necessary?
Definitively - No! Consulting, unless you haven't worked it out, is all about trust and relationships. Building trust through belief in your character and belief in your abilities.
For those of us working in the B2B space - very little of this happens online.
Referrals, networking, developing a track record, doing the work and quoting are all mainly offline activities. Twitter is not going to help the B2B consultant to do anything at all, neither is Facebook.
What it does do however, is to add some weight to your brand. There are other ways to do this, like publishing a book for example, but some form of online presence is definitely one way to add to your offline brand.
Of all the choices I would suggest that a good website that is built to hold conversations, an active attitude towards developing further contacts on LinkedIn, a blog and maybe a very active news release program could add some value to you
But it is by no means essential. You can job around the marketplace by yourself or with a small crew very successfully without it. It really depends on what you want to achieve.
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