Social media: distracted by shiny objects? You’re not alone!

Anyone who uses social media on a regular basis will already know the pitfalls and distractions that come from spending time on Twitter or Facebook. One moment you’re updating your company page or checking on a business hour, and without knowing it you find yourself ten minutes later sharing a video of baby pandas, or following the latest celebrity trend. Are you simply guilty of being distracted too easily? Research conducted in 2012 by LinkedIn thinks otherwise.

There’s a difference, they concluded, between networking on an open social platform, and networking professionally. I guess this is something we all know from the real world – think about your last business networking event, and your last social event. Was your mindset a little different? People tend to be more focused in a business environment, ready to follow up leads and advance their business or career.

This infographic is a great summary of the mindset divide, and the separation that has to occur.

Although the LinkedIn conclusion in 2012 was that they fostered a truly professional mindset, times have changed as LinkedIn has become more social; the only truly professional platforms in 2014 seem to be the private online communities which are now developing globally.

We often find that when we introduce the concept, someone always suggests that they could set up a Facebook of LinkedIn group and achieve the same ends. Our experience and this research counter that opinion pretty easily.

Making the most of your private online community

You want the members of your organisation to be social, but you also want some real results from the online collaboration that takes place. This means that the members have to have a professional mindset when they are networking online with others, and a good degree of privacy, to get real value from the connections they make.

A private community like Ambix is branded and styled to make it very clear that users are in your environment. Although Ambix is easy to use and there’s plenty of social interaction – people buy people, after all – it’s the online equivalent of a business event, and your members will approach their networking with the professional mindset to build their business.

Achieving the work/life balance

By separating personal and professional mindsets, business people can start to achieve something which has been quite scarce in the decade since online communication exploded: a true work/life balance. Up until now the expectation has been that you networked online using business features on open social media, or got to know business contacts better through LinkedIn. By keeping social networking and business networking separate, you start to return to a life where you can catch up on friends without being distracted by work, and concentrate on work without being distracted by friends.

Now, where did I see that panda video….?