Some people swear by Facebook as a tool for business. I am much less sold on the value of Facebook and far more impressed by Linked In. Both networks seem to incorporate ridiculously unintuitive UIs but our recent experience with the BLN Growth Forum has given us some interesting insights into how the business community that we operate with views the two. Linked In seems to be far more popular for senior figures in the entrepreneurial business community.
When people register for the BLN Growth Forum, we drop them an email and amongst other things ask them to show they are coming:
- Facebook and LinkedIn Groups. Please let your network know you will be attending by clicking on the event pages in LI and FB.
As of today we have 165 people registered for the event and have closed registration and are now operating a waiting list.
There are 53 people who have registered as attending on the Linked In page, and 14 people who have registered at Facebook. Everyone that has registered on Facebook is registered on Linked In. We also got six people who emailed us back with snarky comments about Facebook, “If you are putting this event on Facebook I a not trendy enough to come” being one of the most direct.
It definitely feels to me that Linked In still has a significant edge when it comes to capturing the minds of senior executives. Will be interesting to see how this plays out over time.
We also, as much to raise the profile of our excellent BLN Growth Forum sponsors, BDO, ideaSpace and Silicon Valley Bank, ran some advertising on Linked In. I imagine that you will have filtered it out if you had seen it. We spent about $200 targeting specific job titles in the Venture capital and private equity industries, ran an impressive sounding 300,000 impressions and had just under 100 click through views. to my certain knowledge, none of these have resulted in sales.
Keep up the good work, I like your writing.