HML. Homeloan Management Ltd

Recently I’ve been paying an increasing amount of attention to social media and I have to admit I’m pretty taken with it.  

 

I’m not in the minority of course. In fact I’m not even an early adopter of this channel. Social media has been lauded for the last few years as the future - not only of communication, but of business itself.

 

I don’t have most of my friends’ email addresses anymore, I just keep in contact with most of them via Facebook these days. That’s not been a conscious decision, it’s just the way it is. I don’t read many news websites either, as I can pick up all the headlines I’m interested in from Twitter and Facebook. Sometimes I even keep up to date with the football scores via these sites.

 

It’s becoming increasingly hard to differentiate between our work and personal lives, but my business use of social media is increasing at a rapid pace. I’ve started to use Twitter and LinkedIn to engage with people I’ve never met but who share common interests. I’ve tweeted live updates from FS and marketing events I’ve attended and I’ve also followed other people’s tweets from events they are at, enabling me to glean the key points of the day as they happen.

 

That may sound more like fun than work, and in many ways it has been, but it’s also been incredibly valuable to me. I’ve learnt new things, made new contacts, and have been able to obtain specific and genuinely valuable information at no financial cost. For example I’ve recently had expert help free of charge on marketing issues ranging from measuring effectiveness through to evaluating budgets.

 

But I haven’t always been a fan of social media. Truth be told I was a bit miffed when it first started to gain traction, as I felt it was wiping out one of my strengths in life. I’ve always been one of those people who enjoyed networking and keeping in touch. I was the one who had the addresses of old school friends when my other friends needed them – and the guy who kept track of which ex-colleagues were working where and what job they were now doing.

 

So in many ways I felt I had a competitive advantage and that social media wiped it out. Now I have a different view. Social media hasn’t taken away my ability to keep in touch with people and engage with them, it’s helped me make it stronger than ever.

 

When I went to the Mortgage Business Expo recently I was able to find out who was going by following the run up to the event on Twitter. When I got there I spent the entire day in conversation with contacts old and new. I was in my element and barely stopped for a break all day. It didn’t cross my mind until I left, but I hadn’t even had time to tweet – I was too busy talking.

 

So for all the great things social media brings us, there’s no doubt in my mind there will never be a replacement for a face-to-face conversation. Whether work or pleasure, life is about relationships and that’s going to be at the forefront of my mind as I approach 2012, both in a personal and professional capacity.

 

If anyone is interested in HML or shares a passion for B2B marketing I would encourage you to get in touch – you never know what might come out of it.