Aug
15
Ning Social Networking Sites
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, blogging, communication | 20 Comments
When Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini started their work on the Ning social network back in 2004, online social networking was still pretty much a teen thing. True there were marketers like yours truly making a home on Ryze and other business networking sites, but we were the exception rather than the rule.
Ning once completed would allow people to create and manage their own miniature MySpace-like social networking sites.
Ning’s founders probably envisioned a platform on which families and circles of friends would stay in close contact through their very own private social networking site. However, since launching 18 months ago, Ning has found its way into the business world as well as many other sectors of society.
You can start your own plain vanilla Ning social network for free, or for a fee you can exercise greater control over your site and add lots of bells and whistles.
Examples of Ning Social Networking Sites
In Web lifeline for the troops, the Naperville Sun writes that two local men, Ed Domain and Josh Lowe, launched Troop Space, a Ning-based networking site for the brave men and women of the United States Military. Troop Space “is geared toward US troops, their families and anyone who wants to become more personally connected to the military”.
Jim at medXcentral started his Ning community to network “the medical and health care universe” and to “stimulate great achievements and forward motion towards resolving many issues faced by the medical industry today”.
Diane Hochman built the online headquarters for My Private Classroom on the Ning foundation. I joined My Private Classroom several months ago to learn more about social media and to introduce free and low-cost marketing methods to network and direct marketers.
What I Like About Ning Sites
From a user’s point of view here are some of my favorite Ning features:
- When you make a friend at one Ning site and you each belong to another Ning site, you’re connected at the other site too.
- You can browse friends and friends-of-friends and so forth to see what other Ning networks people belong to. In this way you can discover new and relevant places to network. While many Ning sites are private, there seem to be just as many sites that are open to the public. You can also browse Ning’s list of popular social networks.
- You can broadcast a message to all of your friends at any given site. Be careful not to abuse this privelege. Spamming is not effective, and network administrators will typically not tolerate it. This broadcasting feature has allowed me to attract readers to my blog and gain new subscribers.
- In some Ning networks you can also broadcast messages to fellow members of groups you join. This feature encourages spam and is therefore disabled on many Ning sites.
- You can customize your page’s theme and embed videos and widgets just as you might on MySpace and many other social networking sites.
- Much of your profile content can be taken from an existing site and easily reused when joining a new site.
And What I Don’t Like
Here are some of my least favorite Ning features:
- Most sites have very small memberships that are just a little too cozy for marketers like me building their lists.
- A very high percentage of profiles are abandoned, so you can end up with lots of unaccepted friend requests. At some point you may need to delete some friend requests in order to remain eligible to make new requests.
- Very many sites are not much more than recruiting pipelines and sales funnels for the sites’ owners. I find this aspect of Ning annoying, but I tolerate it. For this reason I’m slow to invite friends and business connections to join me on new Ning sites. I want to wait and see if the site is a safe enough place to bring them.
Show and Tell Opportuinity
You can find many of the social networking sites to which I belong featured on my blog’s sidebar.
Do you have favorite Ning social networking sites? Have you started your own Ning social network? Do you have an interesting story to tell?
Feel free to comment and share with us.
Keep in mind that I’m responsible for the quality of my blog and legally responsible for its content. I therefore reserve the right to edit any comment as I see fit.
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Aug
3
Social Media Learning Curve
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, blogging, communication | 11 Comments
The Case for Social Media Marketing
It is becoming increasingly more difficult and more expensive to reach potential customers using mass media. That’s one reason why so many marketers are turning to Web 2.0 social media marketing.
Not only do marketers want to reduce their advertising expense, they also want to connect more directly with people and learn how to better serve their target market.
Social media marketing is especially attractive to small business owners operating on modest budgets, since most social networking sites and other social media sites are generally free to use.
Steep Learning Curve
They read a story such as Beyond Blogs in the June 2nd issue of Business Week, and they rush off to embrace Web 2.0 social media unprepared for the steep learning curve that lies ahead.
The social media landscape is uncharted and sprawling. Social media sites are vying for your attention, and searching the Internet for advice turns up sharply conflicting recommendations.
Need for Mentor
Clearly you need a mentor, somebody smart and knowledgeable with especially strong communication skills. You should find somebody with whom you feel comfortable, because you’ll definitely be getting to know each other. Picking a mentor is difficult.
Effective Communication #1 Challenge
Once you find your mentor mastering essential social media marketing skills will be difficult. To get fully up to speed might take a year or even longer.
That is the bad news.
In my opinion, the hardest part of social media marketing training is learning effective communication, i.e., to write, speak, listen and persuade well and in a professional manner.
There are certainly plenty of technical challenges to overcome, but by far communication is the chief obstacle new social media marketers face. If you happen to have the right mix of communication skills, you’re way ahead of most newcomers.
Your mentor can teach you personal and business branding, online social networking, blogging, video marketing, social bookmarking, SEO and other important skills. He or she can also critique your communication style, but it will be you who will connect directly with your target market and build vital business relationships.
Get Started Now and Learn as You Go
Now the good news.
You don’t have to master every skill, dot every “i” and cross every “t” before getting started.
Find a good mentor to guide you, jump in and get your feet wet. Learn by doing.
As Mike Litman always says: “You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”
Your results will serve as feedback to help you to make the necessary corrections along the way… and that is good news.
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May
22
Blog Marketing
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, blogging, communication | 3 Comments
Blogging and Personal Branding
Personal blogs and business blogs often factor into the marketing mix of both large and small businesses.
Blogging is interactive and enables direct communication with the customer or end user, a subtle form of business networking.
Blogging as a form of networking is not as direct as attending a meeting of a chamber of commerce or a small business association — nor does it replace online social networking at social networking sites. However, it builds credibility while refining and reinforcing the blogger’s personal or corporate brand image.
Search Engine Optimization
As I stated in Top Reasons Why I Blog, “Blogging endears me to the search engines.”
Search engines love to deliver fresh content to their clientele, and that’s what blogs are all about. Each blog post creates new content for search engines such as Google to sink their teeth into.
Search engines send visitors. Some of those visitors become readers and bond with the blogger and his or her company or cause.
Make Money Blogging
This bond presents opportunities.
For example, when bloggers are looking directly to monetize their blogs, as is very often the case in the world of blogs, their readers are often redirected to another site or to a sales page to purchase an endorsed product or service.
This transition is easy once a trusting relationship has been created between blogger and reader.
To learn how to make money blogging, my previous post, Blogs and Blogging for Fun and Profit, is a good place to start.
We’ll continue to explore the relationship between blogging and search engine marketing.
Be sure to visit the Blog Marketing and SEO Training page.
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May
7
Rationale for Social Networking
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, communication | 1 Comment
Last November I examined the popularity of social networking sites.
In a series of four posts I examined the reasons I believed that online social networking was very relevant:
- “High Tech/High Touch” - As sterile technology increasingly impacts our lives, we crave greater and greater intimacy to offset it.
- Digital Age - Our technical capablity permits, even inspires us, to share multi-media digital files with our friends, family and colleagues that contain valuable information, memorable experiences and enjoyable entertainment.
- Communication - Online social networking sites are capable of providing us with the functionality that e-mail did in the past plus a big additional benefit, file sharing.
- Search Engine Optimization - More and more marketers are turning to social networking both to connect with users and to get free traffic. Traffic comes from within the community and, thanks to the search engines, from without as well.
On March 24th I looked at Social Networking vs. Advertising and how people tend to approach social networking with an advertising mindset. If you haven’t seen that post, I highly recommend it.
My good friend Ivo Jackson, a very gifted writer, wrote a blog post April 8, the 7 Reasons Why You Should Do More Networking Than Selling that looked at networking from another angle.
Ivo provides an excellent rationale for social networking that applies to offline as well as online social networking. These are the points she makes:
- People don’t like to be sold.
- Selling only works when people are ready to buy, and most of your network is not ready.
- People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
- Selling yourself or your brand is easier than selling your product or service.
- The law of averages is real - long term success is relative to the size of your network.
- If you help people get what they want, you will eventually get what you want.
- If you expect a great harvest, you must first plant some seeds.
Visit Ivo’s blog and read the complete article.
I wish to add just one point that I made in my March 24th post. Networking allows you to determine what people really want so that you can customize your offer to them.
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Apr
4
Building a List with Online Social Networking
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, communication | Leave a Comment
List building today isn’t the exclusive domain of autoresponders.
Sure, a reliable autoresponder is still a vital tool if you’re marketing on the Internet. However, online social networking and friend lists ought to weigh more heavily in your permission based marketing strategy.
I started realizing this in 2006 when I first joined MySpace. I noticed how much richer and more effective the two-way communication of social networking sites was than the ongoing monologue associated with e-mail marketing.
I always encourage my e-mail contacts to write me back, but few actually do. And I never learn enough about them, unless of course they choose to join me on MySpace, Facebook, Yuwie or one of the other online networking venues I frequent.
There is another big reason to incorporate online social networking in your online marketing repertoire.
Consider the ease with which you can add thousands of friends on MySpace compared to the cost and difficulty of building your autoresponder list. Whether you use one of the “friend adders” and risk suspension of your profile by the networking site owner, or whether you add friends manually, it’s still much more straightforward to build a permission based marketing list through social networking than it is using more conventional opt-in list building techniques.
I myself do both. I add new subscribers to my autoresponders on a regular basis and simultaneously add new contacts to my friend lists on LinkedIn, MySpace and Yuwie. I have a good reason for doing so.
Not withstanding my previous remarks, it’s easier for me to broadcast a message on demand to my opt-in list than it is to my social networking friends.
Most people check their e-mail at least once a day. If they want to hear from me, they will.
If I post a bulletin on MySpace they can easily miss it. I have to post it several times each day to keep it “on top”. And if they don’t log in, or even worse, if they’ve abandoned their profile, they won’t see the message at all.
So why should you put all your eggs in one basket? Diversify. E-mail people and contact them through multiple sites and through multiple channels on each site to maximize your message delivery and response rate.
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Apr
1
Narrowing Blog Focus
Filed Under Announcements, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Personal Development and Success, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, communication | 2 Comments
After much consideration and discussion with my friend Janice Weinberg, I have decided to limit the scope of this blog to online social networking, social media, and personal development.
There are other places to promote her site and her book. Keeping a narrow focus will better serve my readers and help the search engines.
I appreciate your readership and support. I encourage your participation. Sincere comments will be rewarded with a follow-link back to your website.
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Feb
17
Online Social Networking: Instant Messenger
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, books, communication | 3 Comments
Who says you can only do online social networking using social networking sites?
For quite a few years Max Steingart has been showing people how to use Instant Messenger to develop new friendships and business contacts online.
Today we have social networking sites available to us, however the real-time aspect of Instant Messaging makes IM a great social networking tool.
I recommend that you visit Max’s site, join his mailing list, and download a copy of his e-book, Make the Internet Your Warm Market.
Some of the key topics Max covers in his book are:
- “What is your Warm Market and how can the Internet replace it?”
- Why you want to use Instant Messaging
- The Member Directory
- The required steps to making a new friend or gaining a new client
- Searching for the right people
- How to start a conversation
- Internet etiquette and safety
Not only will you learn another way to network, the training you will receive can help you network more effectively using any social networking site.
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Jan
17
Online Social Networking: Get More Personal
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, communication | 7 Comments
Communication is the backbone of online social networking.
In my post of November 11th I discussed the “High Tech/High Touch” concept, and on November 13th I discussed different forms of communication and “the asynchronous nature of social networking sites”.
According to the principle of “High Tech/High Touch” we need more rather than less intimate communication in these digital times.
Social networking sites present us with excellent tools to communicate asynchronously through commenting, messaging, posting bulletins and posting blogs.
There are new advances almost daily, but social networking sites still only partially address our need to relate more intimately in real time through synchronous channels such as instant messaging, telephony, video and face-to-face meetings.
To network more successfully, get more personal!
One thing that might hold you back is a concern for your personal security, especially if you’re a woman, and even more so if you’re a single woman. I will suggest several ways to mitigate this concern.
You could also be uncomfortable getting closer to a certain individual (hopefully not me LOL). Rely on your instincts and intuition. Exercise good judgment — but don’t be overly paranoid.
Here are my favorite ways to ensure a modicum of privacy while taking communication to the next level. They complement networking on any site.
- Get a headset with a microphone for US$20 or so, and download Skype to your computer. Skype lets you talk for free and anonymously to other users all over the world. It also permits small conference calls. With a headset both of your hands will be free to operate your computer or to take notes.
- Give out your cell phone number. You’ll enjoy the convenience of speaking anytime anywhere without revealing your full name or your address. Some disadvantages of using your cell phone are that you might incur cost and that you may receive annoying calls from time to time. You must decide for yourself whether it’s worth it.
- Get your own free conference number and PIN. You and your friend can call in at the same time to speak. If it’s your conference line, you can be sure that there’s no way to capture your phone number. The main down side here is that this protects you but not the other person.
- Install Trillian on your computer. Trillian lets you instant message people on Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and AIM all from one program. Instant messaging is not as good as talking, but it’s real time and interactive — definitely a step in the right direction.
- Starbucks anybody?
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Nov
13
People have been communicating for thousands of years. There are two basic forms of communication, synchronous and asynchronous.
During synchronous communication all parties interact without any time lapse. Face-to-face speaking, telephone conversations and Instant Messaging are all synchronous. The word “Instant” just about sums it up.
During asynchronous communication parties interact at intervals, either because of convenience or out of necessity. Mail, messengers, fax mail, voice mail and e-mail are all asynchronous.
The accessibility and speed of fax mail, voice messaging and e-mail have revolutionized and popularized asynchronous communication. People appreciate the reply-when-you-want convenience of it as well as its ability to transcend time zones and facilitate global communication.
In major corporations e-mail has become the primary method of contact. Memos are passe and telephone calls are considered somewhat intrusive. But don’t expect phone calls and staff meetings to ever disappear, because, as I indicated in a previous post, people crave the High Touch intimacy that meetings afford them.
However, out in the world-at-large e-mail has taken a big hit recently. Spam filtering by Internet service providers and concerns about privacy have led the populace to seek something more reliable and secure. Enter social networking sites! These sites are capable of providing us with the functionality that e-mail did in the past plus a big additional benefit, file sharing.
The asynchronous nature of social networking sites, and the ability of these sites to replace e-mail, have contributed greatly to the popularity of this form of interaction.
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Nov
11
“High Tech/High Touch”
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, communication | Leave a Comment
Back in 1988 I read an excellent book by John Naisbitt called Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives.
In his book Naisbitt coined the expression “High Tech/High Touch” predicting that as sterile technology increasingly impacted our lives, we would crave greater and greater intimacy to offset it.
How right he was!
Cell phones, e-mail, instant messaging, social networking and blogging. We can’t seen to communication quite enough — we crave more and more — and there’s no end in sight.
Looking to explain the very rapid growth of the social networking industry, “High Tech/High Touch” is certainly a key factor. I will look at other factors shortly, and I will refer back to “High Tech/High Touch” from time to time in future posts.
I welcome your comments and feedback.
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