It has finally happened. We have launched the long awaited page on Facebook for WorkersCompensation.com. It was inevitable, although I traveled a long road mentally to get here.
In the very early days of Social Media, as an executive running an online information service, I struggled internally with the concept that we needed to somehow become actively involved on other online locales in order to “promote” our own online entities. After all, with millions of unique visitors every year, we were and continue to be the most visited workers' compensation website in the world. However, as Social Media made its relentless march, we did recognize the importance of that shift, and saw an opportunity on several platforms to expand our reach and incorporate social media into our processes.
We have almost 2,300 followers on Twitter, which is one of the larger groups of followers for a workers' compensation entity. On LinkedIn we have a very strong presence. We co-manage the second largest workers' compensation group there, the Workers' Compensation Roundtable, which will pass 9,000 members this week. We partnered with Mark Walls and his mammoth Work Comp Analysis Group to provide a comprehensive resource center for WCAG members at www.workcompanalysisgroup.com. For better or worse, we routinely show as a “top influencer” in those groups virtually every week. Indeed, LinkedIn and Twitter both have fit very well within our corporate information strategies.
Then of course, we have Facebook; a behemoth platform that services over 1 Billion people around the world. While “business to consumer” companies have understandably been tripping over one another to reach that audience, as a “business to business” website our appropriate utilization of that medium was less clear. My view of Facebook has been, and continues to be, that it is strongest as a personal communication tool, rather than a professional one. While we certainly look to expose our services to a broader audience, it took me quite some time to coalesce on a proper strategy for Facebook.
Compounding the issue, by the way, was our own success in other Social Media areas. We recently partnered with key players to complete a comprehensive Social Media Industry Survey Project, and I have spoken recently at several conferences on Social Media Strategy for the industry. In all honesty, I recognize that if I am out there on my soap box encouraging others to swim deeply into Social Media, I damn well better be paddling away as well – on all available fronts. The time for a Facebook presence has arrived.
So, our new Facebook page, located here, features key news articles, blog posts, comments and events, all related to the world of workers' compensation. We will also feature photos and multi-media offerings not available elsewhere on our site. It provides an important source of information to those active Facebook members who may have not yet ventured far from that realm. We hope they find it useful. As of this writing, it has been online for less than 24 hours, and has been “Liked” by 22 people. We certainly expect that number to climb.
Please join us in our Social Media revolution.
Follow us on Twitter for easy news and event updates throughout the day.
Join us on the Workers Compensation Roundtable for enlightening discussion and outstanding community dialogue.
And now, most importantly, “Like” our Facebook page . It is eagerly awaiting your arrival.