on the rise - Ussco.com

In the Box16Thison the rise3the line on ...34Promote yourBusiness36Mind yourBusiness28eco advocateFEATURES21when the going gets tough31untangle your strategiesDEPARTMENTS40GreatResources46cool stuff/hot deals48the final wordOut of the BoxSocial What?month’s cover story examinessocial networking and howthis online phenomenon impactsthe business of independentresellers. While we are aware ofsome readers who use this technologyregularly, many of you are probablyout there thinking, “Is this reallyfor me?”As this month’s article points out,social networking has moved beyondpersonal applications and beenfirmly adopted by a wide variety ofbusinesses.Social networkinghas ... been firmlyadopted by awide variety ofbusinesses.Not long ago the Financial Timesreported that exchange traders theworld over are signing up for Twitterto connect with traders elsewhere.Day traders use StockTwits to trackrelevant discussions including stocktrends. Traders tweet their opinionsabout a stock, which are then pickedup and displayed on StockTwits’ Website. As of September, about 90,000people had signed up.Besides getting stock tips, tradersuse Twitter to find out what othertraders are doing. Another applicationcalled StreamBase allows tradersto send tweets to their trading system,aggregate them, and sort them byrelevance.There probably aren’t any specificpackages for office products—yet.Still, there are a host of applicationsfor Twitter and other social sitesthat make them especially businessfriendly. It’s all about connectingonline with customers and establishinga rapport, which will be beneficialto your business. You shouldn’thesitate to partake.Michael ChazinUnited Stationers Marketing | mchazin@ussco.comOFF CEL NE1