Blog Post #5 – Building your PLN

Having previously built and sold personal computers, I have some experience in using social media to launch a campaign of sorts. In this specific market, it’s far less important who I am as an individual when looking to engage with the community compared to other communities. The most important part is being upfront with the computer that is being sold. Listing specifications in detail and accurately is the best way to make a good impression. I would make posts on social media made for buying/selling/trading such Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji, and EBay, and I would make sure that I was quick to reply to people asking questions about the computers and people who were expressing interest in buying them. I was able to build connections with people that reached out in response to my ads, because I was selling locally within my neighborhood, and I would also often install the PC in their house and set it up for them, as well as give the older folks that were buying the computers I was building some brief lessons on the technology. Being professional at the outset when people didn’t really know me and then transitioning to a more personable approach once I had established a rapport with my customers allowed for me to establish firm connections for people who would come back to me later on if something broke down or if they knew someone else who was interested in buying a computer. The most important part, though unintended at the time, was that I was actually establishing a PLN with these customers of mine. The questions that they would ask, as well as the recommendations and requests they would make of me when we were discussing the computers taught me a lot about how people learn about technology, especially those of older generations. I was able to apply this knowledge in my interactions when I was looking to sell to people in the future in order to help them make a more informed decision and to help clear up any confusion when it came to all the technical jargon that computers make use of.
Though not directly applicable in the example of my experience outlined above, I think that it is very important to engage with any existing community around the topic that is chosen for the social media campaign, not just because making use of that pre-existing community can save a lot of time and energy, and help spread the network and campaign further, but also because it is the respectful thing to do; greeting people that are already in a space that you are moving into is just the courteous thing to do, and not doing it may and up severely hampering the campaign that is being ran, since you might end up at odds with the pre-existing community otherwise.