Small business owners often complain about the time required to jump into social media. But these same “busy” business owners will spend hours at networking events and in pointless one on one conversations.

Now don’t get me wrong. Good networking is valuable! And smart one-on-ones will fuel your business. Unfortunately, many business owners confuse activity with productivity. They assume if they simply show up enough times, something will happen. While this is fine in the early days of your business, as you get clients and projects, you need to manage your time, choosing the events, meetings and conversations which will make the most sense for your business.

The same approach works for social media and social networking.  In the beginning, register for a lot of sites. Try out different tools. Then start narrowing your focus, concentrating on the tools and sites which make the most sense for you.

How much time does it take? Thirty minutes to one hour a day, spent well is more than enough for most business owners. Remember, that one hour does not have to be all at once. With smart phones, I can pop in, get caught up, send a few messages, read an article or two, all while I am waiting in a coffee shops for my next one on one.

How should you spend your time? I like the model Chris Brogan proposed recently. In it he divides social media into three separate activities:Listening, Commenting/Communicating and Creating. Just as you would in real life, he suggests you spend the majority of your time on the first two.

• 1/4 Listening – Or in the online world, reading and researching. I rely heavily on Google Alerts and my Google Reader for the listening part of my day.
• 1/2 Commenting/Communicating – This is about engaging in conversations. Replying to or repeating information others have shared with you. My favorite tool for this phase is Twitter, but you can also use Facebook, Friend Feed, Plaxo or LinkedIn.
• 1/4 Creating – This is the part of the social media equation which strikes fear in the hearts of many small business owners as they try to answer the question: What do I right about? If you are doing a good job in the other two sections, this third part is easy.   You can fuel your content by sharing what you have found in your listening phase and expanding on conversations which begin as comments.

Is it worth it?   Just like face-to-face networking, it takes time to answer that question.

I spent the early part of my career working in larger companies.  Along the way I discovered I was much more productive, wandering the halls, talking to people, then I was sitting in meeting.  I learned very quickly, that real decisions were made, around the water cooler.

When I started my own business,  I missed those productive, daily conversations.  I knew those informal  ”water cooler” conversations were  important.  It just took me awhile to figure out that my water cooler is the local coffee shop.

The Subject of This Week’s Podcast is The Water Cooler – It’s where I get business done.  What about you?

Written by Melinda Cooper

I am going to my first real networking event in the morning and I have to admit… I am a little nervous. I’m a social girl and I can social network on Facebook and Twitter all day long, but can I network face-to-face? It’s not like I can go around the room and click on people and anonymously (for the most part) select ‘add as friend.’

So here I am searching on our *new* site up a storm under the ‘Networking’ category taking notes from Lorraine’s blogs (since she’s a self-proclaimed networking junkie). Trying to figure out if there is some special strategy to working a room.

So far I have collected these. Old to some but new to me.

http://www.roundpeg.biz/2009/04/chris-brogan-gets-networking/

- I especially like that No. 1 is ‘Be sexier.’ Wasn’t expecting that to show up on any type of networking top 10 list!

http://www.roundpeg.biz/2009/06/small-business-networking/

- This is a more recent blog but I wanted to know exactly who was going to be there. It’s sort of like a family reunion of sorts it seems and I don’t like to be blindsided by crazy aunts.

And to show I’m the fair-and-balanced journalist (Marilyn Weaver would be so proud)….

http://www.rachel-levy.com/how-to-network-effectively/

- Some super basic basics with some amusing bites

http://blog.shareresults.com/12-tips-for-social-media-newbies/

- A shorter (and better HTML-ed) version than the site it links to. Discusses the notorious Tila Tequila and uses emoticons. Easy to follow

I can now breathe a sigh of relief and go into tomorrow’s event feeling more prepared then before. It will probably be my first of many. Check out more networking events here. And who knows… maybe by this time tomorrow I’ll have added you as a friend.

I had a chance to hear my good friend Tony Scelzo make a presentation  at the Rainmaker Summit.  While he had a number of great points in his presentation to Rainmakers on how to effectively use WOM (Word of Mouth) to grow their business, the most compelling element for me was his comments on creating a triple win!

Simply put Tony believes WOM works best when two companies collaborate to bring value to the consumer.  His primary example is the comparison of the Google approach to the Microsoft approach.   Google provides free tools which business use to improve productivity.  As a result individuals and companies make Google their default browser. When they log in, they see the ads placed by companies hoping to attract their attention.  When Google upgrades their platforms and applications,  the upgrades are free, and integrated seamlessly.  When you work with Google, everyone wins. Consumers win because they have access to free software, and advertisements for products for which they are searching.  Companies win because their ads have lots of visibility with the right audience. And Google wins, as they have become the leading search engine, so they can charge more for their ads, which in turn funds more product development.  In this triangle everyone wins.

In contrast consider the Microsoft approach.   They hold consumers and computer manufacturers hostage.  Only recently after multiple lawsuits can you buy computers easily without Microsoft preloaded.   Updates are expensive,  incompatible, and often not different enough to warrant the upgrade. And often the upgrades require so much more memory and RAM you have to upgrade your computer to run the new programs.  In this scenario Microsoft wins, but the consumer loses, the manufacturer may win if you buy the new computer, or they may lose, if  because of multiple recalls or service issues because of the software.While Microsoft has had a good run, they are losing ground as more and more consumers switch to free, reliable web based programs.

As you compare the two approaches, think about how you do business.  Do you look to always come out on top of every transaction or do you have a win, win, win approach?   To build your WOM consider partnerships where the end user benefits because they do business with both partners.  For example if they work with both a lawyer and accountant who partner together, each firm discounts their fee.   Everyone wins, as both firms get more clients, and clients get services at a reduced rate.