Jun
28
Introduction to Using Ning Sites
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Ning Sites, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 13 Comments
I’ve written quite a few articles about the Ning family of social networking sites focusing primarily on social marketing and business networking concepts.
In this article I address every type of Ning user.
By using Ning sites, not only can you transact business, you can also make new friends, discuss special interests, and promote favorite causes. You can network with people all over the world from the comfort and privacy of your home, any time of day or night.
I cannot cover every possible contingency, so feel free to ask questions below in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Before looking at what you should do on Ning sites, I must explain one thing that you should never do on Ning or on any other social network.
Thou Shalt Not Spam
Last September, I slammed the practice of spamming in How Do You Like Your SPAM? If you’re not sure what spam is, please invest a few minutes to read through that article.
Spamming is something that you should never do on Ning or anywhere else. You’re spamming on Ning if you push unwanted advertising, commercial or otherwise, on other people by using:
- private or instant messages
- profile or blog comments
- forum or discussion posts or comments
- site, group, event, page or comment sharing
- something I haven’t dreamed of listing here
Be considerate of your fellow site members at all times. If you want to advertise, use only your page’s profile and blog, and watch for my upcoming piece, Promoting Yourself on Ning.
Uploading Your Photo
When you join your very first Ning site, you need to upload your photo. While you can theoretically skip this step, a picture makes your site page friendlier and more credible.
If for some reason you believe that you cannot use your photo — or a family photo — then find another image to upload in its place. Avoid using the dreaded default image, since it implies a lack of seriousness on your part.
Creating Your Profile
Although volumes could be written on this subject alone, here are ten suggestions to help guide you:
- Get clear about who you are and what you represent.
- Study other people’s profiles. What do you like about them? Dislike?
- Know how you want to portray yourself on each Ning site.
- Express yourself in an accurate, friendly and interesting manner.
- Write in the first person. Avoid bad grammar, misspellings, overused clichés, exaggeration, distasteful slang, etc. Learn to write well — or find somebody who will help you.
- Include links to your relevant websites or blogs.
- Fill in the details each site requests as best you can. If the site doesn’t ask for enough, use your page’s Text Box to present additional information and links.
- Revise your profile often, as you re-invent yourself or gain clarity.
- Ask others for their opinions and listen carefully.
- Don’t wait to get started. As Mike Litman taught me: “You don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going.”
Making Connections
Once you have set up your page, you’re ready to invite people to be “friends” and accept friendship offers from other people.
I know that you’re not naive enough to believe that you can make friends with the click of a mouse, so I must explain to you what it means to be friends on Ning.
Please read the following very carefully:
When you make friends on Ning, you are each giving the other explicit permission to communicate directly using private messaging and Ning’s content sharing features.
E-mail messages will inevitably arrive in your inbox. Some will be spam and others not.
Ask yourself whether you’d mind receiving direct messages from a person. If yes, be friends. If not, pass. However, don’t be too cautious, since you always have the option to remove a so-called friend who has turned out to be problematic.
Communicating One-on-One
When you meet a new person offline, you communicate cautiously at first. You make small talk. Gradually you reveal details about yourselves, and a relationship develops. Approach online communication in the same way.
Be genuinely interested and ask questions to give your new friend an opportunity to open up to you. Reciprocate appropriately as you go along.
Use a profile comment or two to get a conversion going, and then switch to private messaging if and when it seems right. Don’t force anything. It’s better to take your time.
Communicating with the Community
In my opinion, the best way to communicate with all members at one time is by writing blog articles within the Ning site.
If you don’t know how to write, you’ll learn. This is a great way to get practice before starting a stand alone blog on Blogger.com or your own hosting account. Your writing will improve as you do more and more of it.
Write about topics that are important to you. Create a desire within your readers to return and read subsequent blogs. If your articles are helpful, the site creator may feature them, and that will help you to gain readers.
In Promoting Yourself on Ning, I’ll teach you how to promote your blog articles.
Inviting Friends
Social networking sites need new members to grow and thrive. All members share the responsibility for bringing in new members.
Use the Invite feature to send a short invitation to people whom you know. In the comments area of the invitation, say briefly why you like the site. If everybody participates in this process, everybody benefits from the new faces on the site.
Now It’s Your Turn
Ask questions below, so that I can clarify or elaborate on any of the points I’ve made in this article — or address any omissions.
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Jun
23
What is Wrong with Ning
Filed Under List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Ning Sites, SPAM, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 17 Comments
Nearly a year has passed since my first Ning article, Ning Social Networking Sites.
Since then online social networking has taken some exciting twists and turns. MySpace has lost luster, while Facebook and Twitter have become social media darlings.
Ning Still Facing Obstacles
Ning seems to be in somewhat of a holding pattern.
There have been some changes here and there, mostly for the better in my opinion, but no exciting breakthroughs. There are new apps, a new Ning central networking site, and new flexibility, but site creators and users still have their reservations.
As mentioned in Ning Social Network Controversy, the Ning management has been criticized for its policies and its tactics and, as too many people are aware, Ning sites haven’t been immune to spamming by both Ning members and by intruders.
My Ning sites now all require membership pre-approval, since I know of no better way to deal with persistent outsider spamming.
What is Right with Ning
Despite any shortcomings, I still feel as when I wrote about the Ning controversy, that Ning truly epitomizes Web 2.0. Ning sites are communities of people, and Ning is a community of community sites.
I’ve certainly written a good deal about social media list building including both List Building Paradigm Shift and List Building Using Ning Social Networks. Nevertheless communities are the essence of social media, not lists, and social marketing must therefore favor community building over list building.
Fortunately Ning can be used to build either communities or lists. There are creative ways to build communities within Facebook and Twitter, but Ning networks were designed expressly for that purpose and afford marketers a variety of useful tools and a degree of social media ownership.
Ning Still My Favorite Networks
I still use Ning social networking sites more than all others. I like them for the reasons cited above and for the many other reasons I’ve discussed in previous Ning related articles.
I have so far created four Ning sites of my own and hope to create more in the future:
- Let’s Follow Each Other - This is a fun networking site for Twitter folk who want to gain followers, share ideas, promote themselves and network with each other.
- Beyond Business Coaching - This is a site for entrepreneurs and marketing professionals who are interested in social media, customer acquisition, customer retention and CRM.
- Online Kosher Networking - This is a niche site for orthodox affiliated members of the Jewish faith to network and share their ideas about Jewish values, Israel, religious observance, charities, politics, jobs, business, etc.
- Outside the Box - If you enjoy my blog, but you don’t use Twitter, and you aren’t necessarily business oriented, this may be the right site for us to connect and network together.
In all fairness, I must tell you that Ning has competitors such as SocialGO, GROU.PS and others but admit that I haven’t yet evaluated them. If you have tried other social network platforms, I invite you to share your experiences with them.
To learn more about using Ning, please read Introduction to Using Ning Sites.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Jun
21
Social Media vs. Search Engine Optimization
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 11 Comments
Social media sites are rapidly altering the web marketing landscape. Now you can use social media to drive targeted traffic to your websites.
You may be trying to determine whether social media is a viable alternative to search engine optimization.
After all, search engine optimization requires extensive keyword research and ongoing content development to achieve top search engine rankings. Is it possible that social media sites might provide a more expedient web marketing solution?
I’ve found in my experience that social networking sites and other social media can generate a modest level of response much more quickly than search engine optimization initiatives. So why not focus exclusively on social marketing?
Social Media AND Search Engine Optimization
Please read The Long Tail and Social Media, and you’ll start to appreciate the extent to which search engine optimization can enhance social media.
Not only does search engine optimization help you promote your website, it also helps you promote your social media content. Your website and your social media together constitute your web presence, and search engine optimization helps you to market your overall web presence.
Interestingly, the converse is also true.
Social media helps your search engine optimization efforts. It adds to the links back to your website generating both referral traffic and credibility with the various search engines.
They key is to coordinate your social media and search engine optimization, creating the maximum synergy between the two through an integrated approach.
The New Online Marketing Professional
It’s no longer enough for online marketing pros to be fluent in search engine optimization technique. They must also fully understand social media sites and their role in building both your online presence and the desired backlinks to your website.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Jun
14
Claim Your Facebook Name
Filed Under Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 20 Comments
A rose by another name might smell as sweet, but could a horrifically long string of gobbledygook ever smell as sweet as facebook.com/larrybrauner?
Not by any stretch of the imagination.
In case you haven’t heard, Facebook started giving out real user names yesterday morning just past the stroke of midnight. To claim yours, go to facebook.com/username.
However if you have a Facebook business page with fewer than 1,000 fans and want to name it, you’ll have to wait. The biggies have first dibs.
My Facebook business page link is still:
facebook.com/pages/Larry-Brauner/80577106448
I use Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, and other social networking sites to network one-on-one with people, and a simple Facebook app merges my Twitter updates directly into my Facebook feed. That’s synergy!
Grab Your Name and Make New Facebook Friends
Hurry and get your new Facebook user name. Then leave a comment below with your main reasons for using Facebook and your new Facebook link, so that we can add you as a Facebook friend.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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May
31
Where Does Your Twitter Lead People?
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Twitter, Web Marketing | 10 Comments
You may have tried without success to use Twitter as a marketing channel. Many marketers struggle with Twitter for one reason or another. It’s often because of where their Twitter leads.
Let me explain.
Spamming
Spammers often follow myriads of random people on Twitter hoping that enough of them will follow back like sheep, or that they’ll click through the spammer’s profile link to view his or her offer.
However, too many marketers with good intentions adopt a similar strategy. They follow large numbers of targeted people but expect them to follow back without providing ample reason for them to reciprocate.
Getting and Staying Followed
People often ask me how I was able to get tens of thousands of followers. They’re hoping that I can point them to some magical system that will generate as many followers for them as I have.
I don’t use those types of systems nor do I recommend that you use them either. At best they match you up with large numbers of unresponsive followers.
Part of any outreach strategy includes following the people whom you would like following you. Life would be simple if each person you chose to follow reciprocated and followed you back.
While some Twitter users will follow back everybody, most of the ones who are desirable to connect with will be selective. They will follow you back only if they like what you’ve been tweeting or if they like you.
Unless your name is Oprah Winfrey, people will probably size you up based on some combination of your …
- Username - Avoid the use of underscores (_) and numerals (0-9) if at all possible.
- Name - Your real name is usually best.
- Picture - Use a professional looking head shot or company logo.
- Background - Use a layout that’s interesting and tasteful.
- Location - Nothing dorky please!
- One Line Bio - Mix professional and personal details. People search on profiles, so use carefully selected keywords.
- More Info URL - Point to content that’s helpful and makes a good impression.
- Privacy Settings - Don’t make your profile private if you want people to follow you. Marketers aren’t supposed to be secret agents.
- Follower Count - It pretty much is what it is.
- Follower Ratio - If you follow many more than follow you, you might look like a spammer. If you follow too few, you look unapproachable or like you don’t value two-way communication.
- Tweet Count - All other things being equal, the more the better but again, it is what it is. Just make sure you post a half dozen representative tweets before you start following people. Fewer than that can be a big turnoff.
- Tweets - You are what you tweet. What you tweet will be the single biggest success factor in your Twitter career. Refer to Tons of Great Twitter Resources or The Twitter Power System Review.
- Retweets - Some Twitter users like to connect with people who are somewhat likely retweet their tweets.
- Tweet Frequency - Some don’t like to follow people who tweet too often, as it tends to fill up their “timeline”.
- Date of Last Tweet - If you stay away too long, your followers will start giving you the axe.
- Personal Recommendations - It certainly helps to have fans to promote you, especially on what’s come to be known as #followfriday or #ff, which is actually every Friday.
With such a long list of criteria, it’s a wonder anybody gets followed or followed back. Fortunately people are looking for reasons to follow as much as to reject, and a reasonable effort on your part can be effective enough.
Web Marketing Strategy
As a marketer, the quality of your content off Twitter is as important as the quality of your tweets on Twitter.
You will use your “more info URL” and a portion of your tweets to reference your content, and your content will determine your marketing success with Twitter — and other social media initiatives as well.
It is this to which I refer when I ask, “Where does your Twitter lead people?”
Your Twitter, social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, blog and website all link together to create a web marketing strategy that builds your image, your community and ultimately your business.
Well written, produced, and placed content and skillful search engine optimization and social media marketing both on and off Twitter will enable you to achieve your key objectives.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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May
17
Twitter Power System Review
Filed Under Announcements, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Twitter | 12 Comments
As a top Twitter business user, I was sent an advance copy of the Twitter Power System for my review. Here are my observations.
The Twitter Power System is a very comprehensive set of videos, e-books, resources and tools.
New users learn how to set up an account and all the basics they need to get going. Experienced users learn how to craft powerful tweets, how to create viral tweets — and everything in-between.
Twitter Power System Content
Thirteen videos in the Twitter Power System learning center provide a total of three hours and 32 minutes of instruction:
- Account Setup - for new and even experienced Twitter users
- Twitter Basics - a how-to guide with the essentials for newbies
- Account Automation - using SocialToo and Tweet Later, two automation tools I love, and some important caveats
- Targeting Your Followers - how to target and use techniques such as sampling and testing
- Managing Your Followers - using FriendOrFollow, My Tweeple and Twitter Karma to manage followers.
- Tracking Your Twitter Links - how to use Cligs to shorten and track your Twitter links
- “Crafting” Your Tweets - the four elements of a tweet and how they all work together
- Finding Information to Share - using Google Alerts and other tools to discover useful information you can share
- Post on Autopilot - create your own content automation tool using Google Alerts, Cligs and Twitter Feed
- How to Use Twhirl - a desktop client such as Twhirl can offer greater convenience and capabilities than accessing Twitter directly from the Twitter.com domain.
- How to Use TweetDeck - ditto for TweetDeck.
- The Bigger Picture - a Twitter review that ties everything together
- Retweet System - creating viral tweets that can be retweeted easily with only two mouse clicks
E-workbooks such as the Getting Started Quickly Guide, Harness The Power of Twitter and the Twitter Power Tools Guide contain a total of 205 pages that serve to complement and reinforce the video presentations.
They discuss many useful strategies and the third-party tools that facilitate the implementation of those strategies.
There’s also a 54-minute podcast, Twitter Unwrapped, to download and enjoy on your computer or iPod. This interview with James Rivers, the founder of the Twitter Power System provides an excellent audio overview of the system.
Twitter Power System Thumbs-Up
I myself have written Twitter articles and spent much time studying and compiling Twitter resources for my article, Tons of Great Twitter Resources. Knowing much about the Twitter content available online, I can enthusiastically recommend the Twitter Power System to you.
I’d like to see greater detail in the varying approaches to meeting different business needs. I’d also like to see case studies. Nevertheless, the Twitter Power System is the best training venue I’ve seen so far.
I’m very impressed by the content and the quality of the videos, and I’ve already picked up ideas from them that are helping me to refine and improve my Twitter methodology.
You can follow me @larrybrauner.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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May
3
Social Marketing for Non-Gurus
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 12 Comments
Let’s face it. Few people are writers. Even fewer are thought leaders or guru types.
What can a “regular” marketer do to stand out and make a strong impression in the social media space?
What if You’re Not a Thought Leader?
Thought leadership is probably not as important in social marketing as is keen interest and enthusiasm.
Certainly some degree of expertise in your niche is desirable and, as I indicated in The 80/20 Rule is readily attainable. However, what you feel about your product, service or brand may be as or more important than what you know.
Several months ago, a close friend suggested that I offer to help one of the U.S. political parties with their social media campaigns.
After serious consideration I decided against it. While I possessed the knowledge I would need to succeed, I was not aligned with that party’s views. Therefore my heart wouldn’t be in the right place to do the top notch work that would be required.
If you enjoy a subject and communicate confidently about it, people will respond favorably.
What if You’re Not a Writer?
Let’s suppose that you don’t write and don’t want to start. What can you do?
Here are a few options:
- If you have a sizable business, you’ll have a person or a department to do the writing for you. Problem solved.
- If you’re a small business or working on your own, outsourcing is an important option. You can hire a writer such as Ivo Jackson to develop your content or a virtual assistant such as Denise Griffitts to do all sorts of creative and technical things that you can’t or don’t want to do yourself.
- On Twitter you can make small talk, post links to interesting content and “retweet” other people’s messages. I have written numerous articles on Twitter. Connect with me @larrybrauner and @MyNewMediaIdeas.
- You can use videos instead of text to spread your message. On YouTube you can create your own video blogs, and if you can sing like Susan Boyle, the sky’s the limit.
- If none of these ideas work for you, you can use your voice and the voices of others. On Blog Talk Radio you can create your own Internet-based talk radio show blog.
Above all be authentic. As I’ve said before, social media marketing is about people, not companies or products.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Apr
26
Social Marketing Insight
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 7 Comments
Social media marketing requires a markedly different mindset than traditional print, broadcast and direct mail marketing — or even PPC or e-zine marketing that use online media.
Marketing Paradigm Shift
Social marketing is not so much about lead development and customer acquisition as it is about brand development, relationship and community building.
Of course social marketers want to generate sales. That’s a given. However, the social marketing medium requires a new and more social approach to the whole marketing process.
Social Media Marketing Flow
Social marketing has its own characteristic flow. Strangers gradually become followers, friends and fans looking to engage with you.
They become increasingly receptive to your ideas and messages. Many eventually sell themselves on your products and services without your intervention. Others may require a little gentle persuasion.
Social media marketing is the art and science of using social media sites to create and nurture social marketing flow.
At the Core of Social Marketing
Social media sites offer the enabling technologies and infrastructure that define the social media marketing platform, but social marketing is centered around people, not around websites.
Furthermore, in social marketing it’s not companies but real people who communicate with people.
Personality, thought leadership, sensitivity, protocol and well-written content are social factors that foster relationship with your market and community participation. Think of social media marketing as charisma marketing.
A community in social media can be built around a blog, a group you start on a social site, or an independent online social network that you create.
The key is to use your personality and your content to give people in your target market compelling reasons to follow you online and to subscribe to your blogs or join your social networking sites.
Then you can speak to your new friends as a group as if they were sitting in your living room and leaning forward to make sure they catch your every word. You won’t need to use old media to yell.
Are you leaning forward?
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Apr
5
Ning Social Network Controversy
Filed Under Alerts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Ning Sites, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 18 Comments
A comment last week to my October 2008 blog post, Ning Social Networking Sites Update, linked back to Ning Exposed - Tech Company Scams its Clients, an article which sharply criticizes Ning’s latest business model and platform, and it alleges foul play on Ning’s part in reacting to complaints by network creators.
As a Ning social network creator and user, I happen to appreciate Ning’s recent platform improvements and tend to disagree with the article’s assessments. While the allegations of censorship are disturbing, my careful reading of Ning’s Terms of Service leaves me hopeful that Ning has acted fully within its rights.
Aggregating Ning Social Networking Sites
I have always looked at Ning as a family of social networking sites. An individual chooses to become a member one or many Ning sites.
Ning members can connect to become friends, and the friendships that they make will extend across sites. Friendships aren’t limited to the site at which they were forged.
I have found managing my Ning memberships and friendships across sites somewhat complicated, so I was pleased when Ning tied everything together for me in one place at Ning.com.
I always viewed myself as a member of the larger Ning community, not just the semi-independent sites which I created or joined, so aggregating Ning sites and Ning members made perfect sense to me. I didn’t view it at all as some kind of sinister plot.
Member Contact Across Ning Sites
The article referenced above mentions a “hole in the system, which is convenient for Ning, which allows people to gather friends across any website using Ning’s technology and then invite them all to join their website.”
The article is referring to the ability of members to share their favorite Ning social networks and content with all their friends across Ning sites as a convenient loophole, not as an intended and beneficial system feature.
I admit that this feature can be and is often abused by members, but that’s not Ning’s fault. The real problem is that people often make friendships indiscriminately. If the friendships were truly meaningful, they would naturally anticipate and welcome contact, even across sites.
Ning Social Concept Epitomizes Web 2.0
As I indicated before, I believe that Ning is true Web 2.0. It takes social collaboration a step farther than Twitter, Facebook, MySpace , LinkedIn and other social networking sites. Individual social networking sites are created and contributed by users, not just the content within these sites.
I applaud Ning for providing us with a unique social networking venue.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Mar
29
Top 10 Social Marketing Challenges
Filed Under List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 10 Comments
I explained in Top 10 Reasons for Social Marketing why marketers need to add social media to their repertoire and promised to “write about the unique challenges that social media marketing poses” to early adopters.
Here then are my top ten challenges that social marketers will likely grapple with:
- Social media often meets with skepticism and resistance inside an organization. This reaction is normal to anything radically new. I suggest that you present social marketing to your colleagues as an experiment that will complement conventional multichannel marketing if successful, not replace it.
- Results aren’t achieved nearly as quickly with social media as they are with direct marketing techniques. When planning an experiment or production, be careful about forming unrealistic timing expectations.
- The social media learning curve is very steep. Few books or courses teach social marketing, and much of the information available online is unreliable or even biased. I recommend that you seek experienced outside professional help to chart your social marketing path, set policy and facilitate implementation.
- It’s easy to spin wheels and waste lots of time going nowhere. There are way too many interesting social networking sites and lots of hype surrounding them. Be sure to read Social Media Targeting for People and Businesses.
- Marketers tend to think in terms of generating leads and building databases rather than building a following and a community — new media style. Furthermore, social media is about relating person to person, not about relating impersonally to people as a company. Be prepared to think in new ways.
- Since social media is community oriented, contributing to one’s community is essential. It’s not enough to communicate just to customers or to prospects.
- Traditional push marketing and list building techniques are usually regarded as spam and are ineffective in the social media world. Old and new media approaches tend to be incompatible. In the social marketing paradigm information is made available online for discovery and hopefully action, and this process isn’t something that can be forced.
- Most newcomers to social marketing think one dimensionally and latch onto fads such as the social media site du jour. Social marketing isn’t one site or one strategy fits all. Once again I recommend Social Media Targeting for People and Businesses.
- Social media is still evolving rapidly and tends to be a moving target. While social media is global, participation in non-English speaking countries is stilted towards English speaking demographics such as students and upper classes. Remain alert to changes in technology and new opportunities that are bound to occur.
- Social media can work against a brand, not just for it — and can be very unforgiving. However, this is true even if companies elect not to use it for marketing or for their public relations. It’s therefore better to be proactive than reactive.
I’m sure you’ll agree that these are all important issues. I hope deal with them individually and in more detail in subsequent posts.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Mar
26
Top 10 Reasons for Social Marketing
Filed Under List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 12 Comments
Even today social media remains a mystery to most marketers. In the minds of most retailers and marketing executives, social media consists of teens messaging on Facebook, sharing pics on Flickr, writing in their blogs or tweeting all their doings on Twitter.
Perhaps they read a few news blogs themselves or have a profile on LinkedIn, but they’re still scratching their heads and wondering how any of this could possibly be useful to them in business.
Coming from the conventional marketing world myself and looking back to my first impression of social media, I can appreciate the retailing and B2B marketing establishment’s legitimate skepticism. That’s why I put together my top reasons for using social marketing for you to share with your colleagues and top management.
Let me caution you however, that social marketing requires its own mindset. Marketing strategies that work well with traditional media won’t necessarily be as effective if applied to new media.
These then are my top ten reasons to take social marketing seriously:
- Social marketing is a logical extension of the multichannel marketing strategy of diversification. Social media sites can extend a company’s web presence far beyond the limits of its e-commerce, lead generation or information sites.
- Social media builds awareness of products and brands by attraction rather than interruption, and by pulling rather than pushing. Consumers enjoy the discovery process and don’t feel annoyed by it.
- Social media employs a community and list building paradigm that’s much more comprehensive, natural and intimate than conventional databases and autoresponders.
- Social media marketers engage customers in dialog. They talk with the customer rather than at the customer as is generally the case with conventional media. Social media can also facilitate post-sale support and dissemination of valuable product tips to customers.
- Social media used properly can build frequency less expensively than conventional media educating and informing the consumer over time.
- Social media can help reach target markets that are too difficult or expensive to reach using conventional means.
- Reach doesn’t determine cost, so social media can target a narrow vertical market while at the same time casting a wide net. Efficiency doesn’t really matter much in the context of social media reach.
- Search engines like social media, and social marketing leverages free high-quality search exposure which is preferable to paying for low-quality pay-per-click or banner advertising.
- Social media sites and your e commerce websites are available 24/7 more or less indefinitely. It’s much like having an ad run in every issue of a publication or like having a catalog or sales letter retained until the customer is ready to make a buying decision.
- Using social networking sites it is often possible to connect directly with B2B decision makers without interference from protective gatekeepers.
Social marketing is different from other forms of Internet marketing. I write about the unique challenges that social media marketing poses in Top 10 Social Media Challenges.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Mar
15
When Social Networking Sites Compete
Filed Under Facebook, News, Ning Sites, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Twitter | 14 Comments
When Twitter, Ning and Facebook Compete
Major social networking sites are constantly competing for new users and for a greater share of each user’s networking time.
When Twitter, Facebook and Ning social networks compete, you and I win. Social networking sites are forced to keep improving in order to keep us as members.
Competing Isn’t Easy
However, competing isn’t easy. Simply adding more features will not always produce better results. Added features might make a site slower, harder to comprehend or more difficult to navigate.
There are very many factors that social networking site owners need to consider and to balance when making site improvements. For example:
- Competitive Environment - What is the competition doing and not doing? How well is it working for them? Who are they targeting? How are they positioning and marketing themselves? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How can we neutralize their strengths and exploit their weaknesses?
- Functionality - What capabilities does our target market want? What can we offer? How will product enhancements be perceived?
- Design Consistency - How can we add capabilities while preserving our site’s overall look, feel and philosophy? What synergies can we achieve between new and existing functionality?
- Cost vs. Benefit - Social network owners must consider the trade off between benefit and cost of each potential site modification?
- Timing - How long will it take to roll out site modifications? Faster is generally better than slower when facing competition. Windows of opportunity can sometimes be very small.
- Monetization Strategies - How will changes affect the income social network owners derive from the site?
- Anticipating the Future - What is needed down the road? How will changes made now interact will future ones?
- Legal Issues - Any patents, trademarks, compliance, disclosures or other legal constraints to reckon with?
- Site Responsiveness - Are site response times acceptable? Can responsiveness be improved? How will social networking site modification affect responsiveness?
- Simplicity - Social networking sites and their features must be easy for members and prospective members to understand.
- Ease of Use - Sites must be easy and intuitive to navigate. Members need simple ways to achieve their online social networking objectives.
- Visual Appeal - Social networking sites need to look and feel right to members.
- Buzz - Social networking sites grow virally when members invite their friends to join. They need compelling reasons to reach out to their friends and easy-to-use mechanisms that automate the inviting process.
- Fun Factor - Members will not hang out at a site if it isn’t enjoyable. A positive user experience is critical to online social network success.
Twitter, Ning and Facebook are continually evolving. However, recent changes to Facebook seem to have been the most far reaching.
Recent Facebook Developments
Facebook changed the look and feel of the pages used by businesses, organizations and celebrities to make them more similar to personal profiles. As a result, overall Facebook design is simpler and perhaps a bit more intimate.
Furthermore, the way businesses and individuals can now both use the Facebook News Feed seems to more closely follow the Twitter model. This is especially good news for businesses, organizations and celebrities trying to communicate with their “fans” and acquire new ones.
My main Facebook complaints are: its persistent sluggishness, the deluge of quaint applications and requests, and the steep learning curve.
Recent Ning Developments
The way I see it, Ning takes the Web 2.0 concept a step farther than any of their competitors. That’s what makes Ning unique.
Not only do users create site content, they even create the individual Ning social networks themselves.
Ning encourages people to become members of multiple social networks. What has been sorely needed is a way to manage participation across these multiple networks from a central control panel. Ning has recently filled this need by creating a new super meta network at Ning.com that’s conceptually a network of networks.
I applaud Ning’s latest effort, but noticed couple of problems with the new meta social networking site:
- There isn’t yet a capability to manage outstanding friend requests across networks.
- The recent friends list isn’t correctly sorted.
Like Facebook, Ning social networks tend to be slow and quirky.
Recent Twitter Developments
The main thing I see at Twitter is a cleaner web interface with fewer rough edges.
Twitter like Facebook and Ning is doing its share to combat spam. Spam in social media is an ongoing problem.
Twitter is much faster than Facebook or Ning. I would however like to see better performance of the Twitter API as it affects the consistency of Twitter tools running on top of it. I can run Twitter Karma many times and get as many different results!
For me and others site performance can be an overriding issue. When a site is too slow, it can be emotionally too painful to endure. For that reason I spend most of my networking time on Twitter, even though conceptually I like Ning and Facebook about as much.
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