How to Boost Your Social Capital with Facebook

4 thoughts on “How to Boost Your Social Capital with Facebook”

  1. Luis –

    Let me share a story about the communication and social network powers of Facebook.

    One of my “friends” in Facebook is a person who works in my office. We take up 14 floors in the office tower, so I can go weeks without seeing him. We both regularly update our status, post items and do the other typical Facebook activities.

    Last week, after not meeting face-to-face or otherwise directly communicating for a few weeks, we ran into each other in the stairwell. We both remarked: “It feels like we talk every day.”

    It is this indirect communication feature of Facebook that is so powerful. LinkedIn is great for maintaining contacts. But it is not very good at being a communications tool. At its core, Facebook is a very powerful communications tool.

    I feel like we talk every day.

    Doug

  2. Hi Luis,

    Though I am not yet on Facebook (ya, there are still guys like me out there), and the only site I actually connect on is LinkedIn, from what I have read about Orkut tells me that there is a lot of stuff happening out there, a lot of it desirable, and some of it not much so.

    The thing quite nice about LinkedIn is the way they have positioned it, where I can connect with people only on a professional interest basis. Not that I have too many connections (around 70), but thats not the point, I think. Most of the guys on the connections are folks with whome I interact, either from college, or from my professional perspective, and this takes care of the school lunchroom comment on Thomas’ blog.

    One thing I think is quite nice over at LinkedIn, is the Answers feature. The way you can attach your questions to categories, the way answers can be written and read, and particularly, how you can refer an expert. I think this is really nice!

    Hope you are enjoying your new role!

    Cheers, Atul.

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