Last week I posted a non business question on a Facebook account that I use mainly for business social networking – the online version of business in the community and the response was so positive that I felt the need to talk about it today. It highlights the strength of social networking for both business and just plain sociability I think so here’s what happened.
My partner suffers from Asthma and has some quite severe attacks, which can be pretty scary – as you will know if you suffer from Asthma yourself. Standard treatments are a range of inhalers and when those are not effective, courses of powerful steroids are sometimes prescribed. My post followed a particularly bad attack that my partner suffered at 2am on a morning last week. She was coughing painfully and found it hard to get air into her lungs for at least 2 hours.
Social Networking in An Online Community
Now I know that my circle of social networking friends and fellow SFM members includes quite a few entrepreneurs who are involved with alternative therapies, medicines and diets so they seemed like the obvious people to ask for help. My Facebook post about this got a huge response and pretty much none of it was in the form of sales pitches for specific products as you might expect from a social networking group comprised mainly of online marketers.
Instead I got some fantastic and very helpful conversations about alternative ways to combat Asthma symptoms. They ranged from dietary to philosophical approaches – one being a Chinese therapy that relates lung ailments to the emotion of grief. This was an eye opener since my partner’s asthma did in fact start soon after her brother took his own life a few years ago.
Social Networking = Social Entrepreneurship
To cut a long story short we now have quite a few things to try rather than relying on a purely drug based treatment. This is a relief because frankly the list of possible side effects that come with the steroid courses in particular is pretty worrying – particularly for people who have had incidents of severe depression in their close family.
Now I can’t say if every business community engaged in social networking would deliver a response like I had from the SFM community, but I can say that it’s typical of this group. The reason for that is probably down to the unique element of social entrepreneurship that I constantly find with SFM and DEA.
This is probably down to the dual nature of the mentoring the company offers. ON the SFM side we have the strategy and business training, on the DEA side, the mindset stuff. This attracts a very supportive and nurturing type of entrepreneur and is probably why so many are from the “healing” professions. Whatever the reasons the uniting factor is that we are all looking for lifestyle improvement and changes.
Aside from promoting a business and coaching system that aims to help people live a more modern lifestyle with digital marketing, SFM also shows people how to grow their existing business with the same strategies and tools. Social networking is the ideal platform for marketing alternative medicines and therapies by its very social nature. Word of mouth counts for much more than intrusive advertising on Facebook after all.
I’d like to say a big thanks then to everyone that responded with helpful advice and suggestions. Not everyone who did is an SFM member but for those who are it’s just another example of a brilliant business and social networking community in action. Find out more with some complimentary videos by clicking on the link below.