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Profiting From Online Social Networking

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

This is the second in a series of articles we will be publishing relaying thoughts and ideas from the Internet Retailer Conference in Chicago, which occurred June 5th through June 7th. Peter Kosciewicz, Director of E-Commerce for the Eastwood Company, and Chris Saito, Senior Director, Shopping Products for Yahoo! Shopping, delivered a presentation entitled “Social Networking: The Peer Pursuasion Marketing Tool.”

According to Kosciewicz, the Web today has grown into an “architecture of participation” that facilitates social networking through devices such as blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, and more. Forrester Research has published studies that show that traditional marketing is continuing to lose credibility. For example, in 2002, 78% of respondents in a survey said that ads are a good way to learn about a new product. In 2004, that number had dropped to 46%. In 2002, 14% of respondents agrees that companies generally tell the trust. As pathetic as 14% is, in 2004, it had declined even further - down to 7%. Social networking as a means of marketing overcomes this lack of consumer trust because it relies on the word of the consumer rather than the word of the producer. Research from Datamonitor reported that 85% of repondents in a survey indicated that word-of-mouth from friends, family, or colleagues is more trustworthy than corporate-generated content.

So how do you take advantage of social networking to sell more product? Simple - you open yourself up. You plant the seeds of a community to grow up around your site by using devices such as blogs, customer reviews, and forums to give a voice to your customers or prospective customers. The caveat is that you must be high quality. You must have high quality service and a high quality product. If not, avoid this marketing method.

Kosciewicz outlined four important rules for using social networking on your web site:

1. Guide but don’t control.
2. Never censor.
3. Don’t be afraid of the negative.
4. Don’t be paranoid.

If you open up a forum on your site but then restrict what people are allowed to say, such as removing posts that are negative toward your company or that mention your competitors, then you will do more damage than good to your reputation. Use negativity as a way to improve your business. If people are negative, look at that as feedback and act on it. Make changes, and then let your community know about it. Don’t worry about your community talking about your competition. Your attitude has to be that you are the best, so why worry about it?

As a community develops around your web site, certain members will establish themselves as more influential than others. They will be more outspoken, and will be the ones who often respond to others. Cultivate these members, because they can be powerful allies. Once you have identified the more influential members of your community, contact them regularly, give them free product, become their friend. Feed your influencers information, and they will distribute it for you. But do not make it appear that you are only interested in them because they can help you sell stuff. You need to be genuine.

Measuring the impact of social networking is difficult. Unlike other forms of marketing, there is no direct connect between social networking activity and sells. What you will want to do is track traffic to pages such as customer reviews, referral links, etc.

Social networking can be a powerful marketing tool, if you have a high quality product and are not afraid of an open dialogue with your customers.

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Social Networking for Business

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

Associations and trade organizations are great places to meet individuals. Usually organizations have a common theme, and it is an understood implication that all members participate to improve themselves and their businesses.

Whether it is a chamber of commerce or a trade association, members have common problems, issues and concerns. By sharing issues and resolutions, members can benefit by the experience of others. Many business owners participate in organizations, not only to network, but also to hopefully circumvent some of the pitfalls encountered by other small businesses–learning from others.

Networking Tips.
Many trade organizations provide forums for networking. In some cases, these might be private online newsgroups, casual meetings, or even professional events with speakers. In order to take full advantage of these networking opportunities consider these tips.

Who You Know.
It is often not who you know, but who they know. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen someone put-off someone who is clearly a beginner only to learn that the “beginner” is the brother or friend of a contact they’ve been trying to meet for weeks.

Honesty.
Be honest. Pretending to be something that you are not, or implying you can deliver a product or service that is outside of your abilities, will foster an environment of distrust and potentially harm your reputation. Keep in mind that networking is viral?vital? and if promises are not kept, word will spread. Establishing yourself and firm as an honest, reputable company.

Professional.
Keep conversations to strictly business subjects. In a business environment, it is important to focus on safe non-emotional topics. The last thing you want to do is alienate or offend a potential client because of an outspoken view on a controversial topic. There is a time and a place for everything and discussing political views or cultural issues is not a generally accepted business topic. Bearing that in mind, it is also important to be aware and sensitive to cultural differences. The Internet has opened doors to a global market and respecting cultural differences is critical to establishing strong business relationships in the global marketplace.

Socialize.
Now is not the time to be a wall flower. Whether you participate in social business events, or monitor trade forums, it is critical that you participate. Participation will help you distinguish yourself in your industry. Attempt to remember individual personal details and foster introductions among others in the industry.

Positive.
Stay positive. It sounds simple, but it will really impact how others view you. If you are constantly negative and pointing out the flaws in others, it will reflect on how others view you. Presenting the best and positive business experiences will enhance your image.

Help.
Provide genuine assistance to others. Whether or not they are able to reciprocate, networking is viral?vital?. Helping others will establish you as a useful member of your business community and will endear you to others. If you are unable to help an individual, attempt to refer them to someone who can.

Research
A little research goes a long way. Be sure to research people and companies in your business community. Knowing their common goals and interests will build topics for discussions.

Acknowledging the need to connect with others to grow and expand a business may seem like common sense. Cultivating business relationships and interact with other small businesses is often mutually beneficial and should not be underestimated.

Networking is about building relationships and mutual interaction benefiting both parties. Being proactive and following up, you can have a network of contacts that you will be able to access quickly when you need them. Whether by more traditional means, such as in person or over the Internet, personal networks are essential for furthering your business. Relationship networking is give and take, be sure to help others in your quest for help.

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Social Networking Websites Popularity May Be Short Lived

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

A lot of people are jumping on the Myspace bandwagon by creating their own social networking websites to appeal to different niches within different demographics. Myspace is a place for everyone, now web programmers and developers are narrowing their focus because they know a niche can make them rich.

Due to this increase in social networking websites a lot of people are calling this another internet boom. People are creating social networking websites for a few hundred dollars and getting big offers from venture capitalists to sell their websites for millions of dollars. The main reason venture capitalists want to purchase these companies is because they know the advertising revenue from these companies can be very high. The under thirty market is a difficult market to reach but social networking websites put a lot of people all in one place, making it easier for advertisers.

Even though people are making social networking websites, and others are willing to buy them, the bad publicity that they get for being unsafe, as well as a future saturation of the market, from too many people starting social networking websites, is going to leave some people that try to jump in on this new internet bubble in the cold.

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Social networking sites keep visitors coming back.

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

These days, if you want to make sure that your getting, holding, and retaining website visitors that are hungry for whatever it is that you might have to offer then you will want to make sure that you keep up with the new trend of social networking.

Having the best computer systems or the new how to book that will revolutionize some industry or an awesome recipe that makes spam into a tasty treat is just not enough to entice internet shoppers to purchase your product anymore.

With all of the research tools such as the amazons, and google search enabled, price comparing websites, shoppers are only going to become returning loyal shoppers when they feel that they know you and can trust you and that you offer some distinct content that they can identify with.

Net savvy consumers are not going to trust strangers with their money anymore regardless how good a product or service might actually be.

Social networking sites are seeing strong growth and have developed a unique online presence that is continually refreshed by user generated content, and this promotes ongoing consumer interest and visitor loyalty.

So where are the visitors that you want and need at your web- site gathering and more importantly, returning and staying?

According to Nielsen//NetRatings,

MySpace.com heads the list with with 38.4 million unique visitors and a year over year growth rate of 367 percent. Blogger takes the Next position at number 2, garnering 18.5 million unique visitors and growing 80 percent year over year, followed by Classmates Online with 12.9 million unique visitors and a 10 percent year-over-year increase. Rounding out the top five social networks is the New on the scene “YouTube” and the old guard and standby “MSN Groups” with 12.5 million and 10.6 million unique visitors, respectively.

Although it’s not certain yet how strong these social sites will become given the youthful nature of most of their clientele, it is certain that they will not be going anywhere soon.

Those youthful members of such online communities Buy, and when they do, they also tell their friends, “a lot of friends” about that cool new widget that they just bought from a great website that they found from their network.

Repeat visitors are up to 8 times more likely to make a purchase than a new visitor according to a study by ” study by WebSideStory”.

The normal conversion rate of between 1.5% and 3% for new visitors has never been much to get excited about, but with an estimated 45% of all internet users spending more and more of their time at MySpace, MSN Groups, and elsewhere, website trade is also growing at a tremendous pace with up to 23% conversion rates not uncommon.

In my book, those figures are enough to convince this old grand-paw that it’s time to pay attention to the youth of our society and to follow their lead.

Have you hugged your teenager today?

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Introduction To Social Networking

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Social network theory views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes.

In its most simple form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to determine the social capital of individual actors. These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.

The shape of the social network helps determine a network’s usefulness to its individuals. Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful to their members than networks with lots of loose connections (weak ties) to individuals outside the main network. More “open” networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties.

In other words, a group of friends who only do things with each other already share the same knowledge and opportunities. A group of individuals with connections to other social worlds is likely to have access to a wider range of information.

It is better for individual success to have connections to a variety of networks rather than many connections within a single network. Similarly, individuals can exercise influence or act as brokers within their social networks by bridging two networks that are not directly linked (called filling structural holes).

Degrees of Separation and the Global Social Network

The small world phenomenon is the hypothesis that the chain of social acquaintances required to connect one arbitrary person to another arbitrary person anywhere in the world is generally short. The concept gave rise to the famous phrase six degrees of separation after a 1967 small world experiment by psychologist Stanley Milgram.

In Milgram’s experiment, a sample of US individuals were asked to reach a particular target person by passing a message along a chain of acquaintances. The average length of successful chains turned out to be about five intermediaries or six separation steps (the majority of chains in that study actually failed to complete). Academic researchers continue to explore this phenomenon. Judith Kleinfeld has written an article that points out the many problems with the original Milgram research.

A recent electronic Small World experiment at Columbia University showed that about five to seven degrees of separation are sufficient for connecting any two people through e-mail.

Internet social networks

The first social networking website was Classmates.com, which began in 1995 and used the Old Boy Network method of social networking. Other sites followed, including SixDegrees.com, which began in 1997 using the Web of Contacts model.

The year 1999 saw the development of two competing models of social networking, the Circle of Trust developed by Epinions and utilised by Ciao.com, Dooyoo and ToLuna and the Circle of Friends developed by Jonathan Bishop, which was utilised on a number of regional UK sites between 1999 and 2001 and flourished with the advent of a website called Friendster in 2002.

This is now one of the most dominant methods of social networking in virtual communities,

perhaps for the reason that it gives the user control rather than being computer controlled. There were over 50 social networking sites using the Circle of Friends in 2005 when one such online community, MySpace, was getting more page views than Google. Google has a social network called Orkut, launched in 2004.

Social networking began to be seen as a component of internet strategy at around the same time: in March 2005 Yahoo launched Yahoo! 360°, their entry into the field, and in July 2005 News Corporation bought Circle of Friends-based MySpace followed by ITV buying Old-Boys Network-based Friends Reunited in December that year. It is estimated that combined there are now over 200 social networking sites using these existing and emerging social networking models.

In these communities, an initial set of founders sends out messages inviting members of their own personal networks to join the site. New members repeat the process, growing the total number of members and links in the network. Sites then offer features such as automatic address book updates, viewable profiles, the ability to form new links through “introduction services,” and other forms of online social connections. Social networks can also be organized around business connections, as in the case of LinkedIn.

Blended networking is an approach to social networking that combines both offline elements (face-to-face events) and online elements. MySpace, for example, builds on independent music and party scenes, and Facebook was originally designed to mirror a college community, though it has since expanded its scope to include high school, job-related, and regional networks.

The newest social networks on the Internet are becoming more focused on niches such as travel, art, tennis, football (soccer), golf, cars, dog owners, and even cosmetic surgery.

Most of the social networks on the internet are public, allowing anyone to join. Organizations, such as large companies, also have access to private social networking applications, known as Enterprise Relationship Management. They install these applications on their own servers and enable employees to share their networks of contacts and relationships to outside people and companies.

A recent development of social network is the integration of marketplace element in it, known as the Social Marketplace

There are many discussions as to where social networking is headed next. The advent of the Internet has enabled informal social networks to connect with people globally and with time shifting (through email), although in practice, most interactions are with people who live and work nearby.

A new type of social network are links between web pages. These can be studied in their own right (i.e., where are the hubs?) and as links between individual’s web pages in social software where individuals begin with their address book, and expand their network by adding friends, “friendster” acquaintances and imaginary friends. This creates connectivity through being discovered through friends of friends, etc. Future applications may allow for discovering the social networks of others by stumbling upon them.

gibLink is poised to become a leader in the adaptation of social networking and a social marketplace under one roof. By revenue sharing with it’s members, gibLink will create a huge impact on this new business phenomenon.

For more useful articles like this please come back and visit us again at Online Money Lab.

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Posts Tagged ‘social networking’

Profiting From Online Social Networking

Social Networking for Business

Social Networking Websites Popularity May Be Short Lived

Social networking sites keep visitors coming back.

Introduction To Social Networking

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