Business social networking flourished in ancient times. Anything you might have called technology had to have been very primitive. The now quaint Rolodex wasn’t invented until 1956.

With the invention of personal computers in the seventies,  people began storing contact information electronically using increasingly sophisticated software programs, such as Act!

Online Networking Emerges

Online social and business networking as we know it emerged in March 2003 when Friendster went live. I became a member of Ryze, my first business networking site, in November of that year. At age 51, I had become an early adopter of online social and business networking.

During the past seven years, countless social and business networking sites have appeared. In November ‘07, I started Online Social Networking in order to blog about effective use of these networking sites, which had already become part of the newer larger social media space.

Social and business networking sites are here to stay. The largest of the networking sites, Facebook, already boasts about half a billion users.

Social and Business Networking Changing

Although all savvy online networkers strive to take their online relationships offline, off- and online networking integration has recently become a major phenomenon with location- based social media, such as Foursquare, and offline networking sites, such as Meetup, gaining every day in popularity.

I predict that mobile technology and mixed off- and online networking will dominate the social space for years to come and enrich it in exciting ways.

I’m creating my own niche at the intersection of off- and online business networking, and I hope to be able to tell you about it soon.

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Tags: business networking, business networking sites, mobile technology, online social networking, Ryze, social networking, social networking sites

The main problem with Facebook groups is a problem that all online networking sites and offline networking groups face, insufficient engagement.

People find it easy to join a networking group but difficult to show up or to participate online or in meetings.

Facebook Groups Especially Problematic

One very serious limitation of Facebook groups is that posted content doesn’t appear in members’ news feeds.

This limitation doesn’t apply to Facebook pages and profiles. However, positioning and visibility of Facebook page and profile content on users’ news feeds is subject to Facebook EdgeRank.

Since content doesn’t appear in member’s news feeds, group members can only learn of new content or read that content if they happen to visit the group’s page.

Partial Solution to Facebook Groups Problem

Fortunately, this problem is partially offset by an important feature of Facebook groups. Moderators can send newsletters to group members that are delivered directly to their Facebook inboxes. Group newsletters can inform and help to increase participation.

Too many group creators use their group’s newsletters to spam members. Spamming members makes newsletters ineffective and kills any chance of getting members to participate. My advice is to keep members’ interests in mind when you mail them, not just your own.

Please don’t forget, you can broadcast newsletters directly to your members’ inboxes provided you don’t have 5,000 members or more, so limit the size of your membership.

That’s all I have to say about the problem with Facebook groups until you leave a comment.

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Tags: Facebook, Facebook EdgeRank, Facebook Groups, social networking sites, SPAM

“You’ve got to hand it to Facebook. They certainly know how to do security — not,” wrote Steve O’Hear in Video: Major Facebook security hole lets you view your friends’ live chats on TechCrunch Europe last week.

Security flaws that exposed private chats and other private information to so-called “friends” have enraged many Facebook members and critics.

In Facebook needs to face the music, InfoWorld links this misstep and previous Facebook transgressions to the social networking giant’s plans to control the web.

More Facebook backlash is likely, but this possibility really doesn’t concern me very much.

My Key Facebook Concern

I am very concerned whether or not this incident will deter you from using Facebook for your social media marketing and digital public relations.

While many will use the Facebook blunder to justify their hesitation to market on Facebook, don’t you join their ranks. Don’t you let Facebook’s speed bump become your speed bump.

A Little Company Called Microsoft

How often has Microsoft released software that contained bugs and security glitches? Although their aggressive marketing has been held in check by anti-trust suits and fierce competition from Google and Apple, Microsoft continues to make billions and still dominates the PC niche despite a long history of computer software problems.

Please Ignore the Naysayers

My advice to you:

• ignore all naysayers, there will always be plenty of them
• get your Facebook page going and growing as quickly as possible
  
• attract lots of targeted followers to your Facebook page
• start your Facebook conversation and share your content
• build your brand on Facebook and all over the social web

Come join my Facebook conversation too!

Have any comments? The floor is yours.

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Tags: Facebook, social networking sites

Yesterday, May 4, 2010, was a very sad day for social media and Web 2.0. We all suffered a tremendous loss.  Yesterday was the day that Ning died.

No, Ning, the company, did not die; Ning, the company, is still very much alive, and many Ning social networking sites are alive as well, looking forward to upcoming Ning changes this July.

However, yesterday, Ning, the concept, was laid to rest.

A preliminary autopsy all but ruled out foul play. It suggested instead that perhaps too much user abuse and too little user engagement aggravated the Ning concept and hastened its sad demise.

The Ning concept was beautiful and elegant, a network of social networks.

Not only were contributions of social network end users Web 2.0 content, the individual social networks themselves were Web 2.0 content within the Ning meta social network.

The Ning concept leaves behind thousands of Ning social network creators seeking new homes. Many homes are ready to take them in but cannot accommodate them to the extent that Ning and the late Ning concept had accommodated them in the past.

Nevertheless, bereaved Ning social network creators who loved the Ning concept maintain hope for the future.

Ning concept, 2007-2010, rest in peace.

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Tags: Ning, Social Media, social networking sites, Web 2.0

This is not the first Ning Social Network Controversy and probably not the last one either.

In Ning’s Bubble Bursts: No More Free Networks, Cuts 40% Of Staff on TechCrunch, Jason Rosenthal, the new CEO of Ning, revealed that his company will let go of staff and discontinue hosting free social networking sites –  both in an attempt to bolster Ning’s bottom line.

In an update on Ning Creators, Mr. Rosenthal wrote that Ning will cater to users of its premium services who “represent over 75% of our traffic,” and that he would announce the details of the changes on May 4.

To address the mounting concerns of Ning’s free site creators, he also wrote,  “We recognize that there are many active Ning Networks for teachers, small non-profits, and individuals, and it’s our goal to have a set of product and pricing options that will make sense for all of them.”

My Take on Ning

I personally have been unhappy and hurt by many changes to the Ning social network in the past half-year or so. Nevertheless, I want to make it clear that I completely support whatever Ning decides to do with its business.

After all, Ning exists to generate a profit and return on investment. If Ning believes that changes — no matter how radical they may be — are required to improve its service and increase its likelihood of success, Ning must effect those changes.

Many Ning social networking sites will close down rather than upgrade. I’ll be sorry to see some of them go.  However, there will inevitably be more broken links than broken hearts, since most free sites with active members will upgrade and pay.

I’ll close some of my own Ning networks that are providing little benefit and open other Ning sites.

Alternatives to Ning

A few good free alternatives exist for Ning site creators who prefer not to upgrade:

• SocialGo - Says on their website that their free social networking sites are “free forever.” It will take effort to get your network started again, but this looks like the best choice as of now.
• Facebook - A Facebook group isn’t a bad alternative. You’ll need to change your networking paradigm, but in the end, you may be able to attract far more members from within Facebook.
• LinkedIn - If your network is business oriented, a group on LinkedIn could make sense too.
• Ning - Start a group within a premium Ning social network. You already understand the Ning platform. If you can find the right home for your group, it will benefit both you and the creator of that Ning site, a win-win situation for both of you.

Let’s all wait until after May 4 to decide upon a course of action.

Have any thoughts about Ning or a good alternative to Ning you’d like to share? Please leave a comment below.

In any case, please subscribe to my blog and join my Facebook page.

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Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, Ning social network, social networking sites, SocialGo

Can social aggregation and syndication websites make life online easier?

I wrote in Hubze is a New Business Site for Personal Branding and Social Media Aggregation that “the aggregation of social websites will be a major focus of 2010, as enabling technologies like semantic web come to the forefront.”

Social media enthusiasts who regularly cross post on multiple social platforms use aggregation and syndication sites and tools to simplify simultaneous cross posting across those platforms.

For example, I often want to share a link, an idea or content on all of the most popular social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Ning sites, such as inSocialMedia).

Since I don’t want to work through a complicated or tedious process each time I do that, I rely on syndication sites such as Amplify, Ping.fm and Posterous to help, depending upon the type of information I’m sharing.

Posterous vs. Amplify vs. Ping.fm

I prefer syndication sites over desktop tools, since I can access those sites from any computer wherever I happen to be, and they also help build my web presence. These are my current favorites:

• Amplify - A social bookmarking site. You add links (along with article snippets if you like) using a browser bookmarklet, and your entries are posted to all the social networks you’ve specified. Amplify also has a strong social element and is a useful online social networking resource.
• Ping.fm - A micro blogging site (a little like Twitter). Your posts can have pics attached, and can be distributed to a large variety of pre-specified social websites. You can conveniently submit your posts to Ping.fm by email.
• Posterous - A blogging community to which you can post pics, video and text. Your Posterous posts are shared on a variety of pre-specified social websites. Posterous, like Amplify, has a strong social element. As with Ping.fm, you can submit your posts to Posterous by email, and as with Amplify you can create posts using a browser bookmarklet.

Hubze, now in testing, may be another important aggregation and syndication site in the future.

However, there are many syndication sites and tools that are already being used successfully. Which social aggregation and syndication websites and tools do you like to use — and why?

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Tags: aggregation, online social networking, social bookmarking, social bookmarking sites, Social Media, social networking, social networking site, social networking sites, syndication

Read down to the end of the comments for the latest Hubze news!

People often ask me to have a look at brand new social networking sites. I typically decline, as I prefer to invest my time checking out social sites that have already gained acceptance.

However, this week, when my blogging friend John from EZGreatLife.com sent me to Hubze, a social media site that might help me brand myself and tie together Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites, I decided to investigate.

Accounting for my motivation was an expectation that the aggregation of social websites will be a major focus of 2010, as enabling technologies like semantic web come to the forefront. Don’t we all wish it would be easier to organize and streamline our many social networking sites?

The landing page provided little information. It did however indicate that I could become a beta tester if I joined by noon my time on the 13th, and I joined. John had told me that there would be gifts for the beta testers, but I’d have signed up right away in any case.

Hubze, Pronounced Hub-Zee, Formerly Moneza

Last night I attended a webinar to learn some details. I’m far from an expert, but this is what I learned:

• Hubze (formerly Moneza) is the name of the website, and it’s free to join.
• In my opinion Hubze and the Hubze Card are useful and timely ideas in their early stages of implementation, and I do not believe that Hubze is a scam.
• Membership includes your Hubze Card (which resembles Card.ly but is substantially more powerful). Your Hubze online business card provides your contact information, links to your active social sites and displays your live update feed (pretty much like Friend Feed does). The Hubze Card also displays how many people you are tracking (following) and how many you are tracked by (followed by), an indication of your social influence and clout.
• The Hubze Card is viral, as viewers are encouraged to get their own. When they do, they become part of your growing network, which expands outward from you at its center. This helps to grow your brand virally, but exactly how that works, I don’t yet understand.
• There will be a back office from which you’ll manage your Hubze Card and from which you’ll post updates to all your social sites at once (much as if you were using Friend Feed or ping.fm).

This is the Hubze Registration Page. Please join me at Hubze and we’ll build our networks there. Watch for the next Hubze webinar which will provide us with more details.

Coming in on the ground floor (as I did with both Twitter and Ning) will facilitate your community building process.

Read the comments below and leave one of your own if you like.

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Tags: hubze, Hubze Card, moneza, Social Media, social networking sites

I spoke on December 9 with Rohn Robbins, Vail, Colorado attorney and the host of Community Focus on The Zephyr, True Local Radio, KZYR 97.7FM.

During the hour-long radio show, Rohn and I  discussed social media, online social networking and the most popular social networking sites from social, cultural, political, security and privacy perspectives.

While I continue to analyze the sites posted on my Facebook page during our website promotion event and social media party, pour yourself a drink and listen to the podcast online or download it to your iPod or MP3 player for offline listening.

You can find additional interviews and press coverage on my Media Buzz page.

Please share your thoughts about the world of social media and social networking sites, using the handy comment space provided below for your convenience.

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Tags: Facebook, online social networking, Social Media, social networking sites

I’ve bookmarked and skimmed a dozen or more articles that project the path of social media in 2010. Collectively these articles represent many days of researching and writing.

Search Social Media 2010 on Google, and you’ll be able to compile your own social media 2010 reading list. If the information in all the articles isn’t sufficiently comprehensive, a list of 44+ social media books to buy and read can help fill the gaps.

Not that I don’t like reading about trends and innovations — I do. However, I learned long ago that the bleeding edge cuts both ways, and there’s merit in waiting until the timing is right.

Blogs and Facebook have been around for years, yet only recently have they emerged as key tools for main- stream businesses.

I suggest that we watch and see how social media and technology play out in 2010, but that we focus on the basics and build our web presences right now using techniques and resources at our fingertips.

Here are my eight social media marketing basics for building a web presence 2010:

1. Core Marketing and PR Competencies - Analytics, branding, communication, competitive intelligence, design, list building, market segmentation, marketing research, targeting, etc.
2. High-Quality Relevant Content - Producing and sharing articles, videos, podcasts, pictures, conference calls and talk shows.
3. Search Engine Optimization - Social media and SEO complement each other. Read Social Media vs. Search Engine Optimization and Website vs. Web Presence.
4. Blogging - Also in Website vs. Web Presence, Darren Rouse, author of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, shares in a video his blog-centric approach to social media marketing, an approach to which I subscribe.
5. Social Networking Sites - Nearly any social media site can present opportunities to network. By social networking sites, I mean sites that exist primarily for networking rather than content sharing.The principal social networking sites for business are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. You can also throw into the mix Ning and other niche social networking sites.
6. Content Sharing Sites - Two of the most popular content sharing sites are YouTube and Flickr, but there are many more.
7. Social Bookmarking Sites - There are hundreds of business and social bookmarking sites. Two of my favorite sites are Business Exchange and StumbleUpon.
8. Blog and Web Site Networks - There are many blog and website networks. My favorites include Entrecard, NetworkedBlogs,  Technorati, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog and Google Friend Connect.

With these social media basics, you can build a huge web presence in 2010. It’s not possession of the latest technology or an inside scoop on a new FB app that’ll enable you to soar in 2010. Your success will depend largely upon your own creativity, skills, efficiency and inner motivation.

I hope you have already mastered the all-important skills of subscribing to blogs and commenting on blog posts. 

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Tags: Blogging, content sharing, SEO, social bookmarking, Social Media, social networking sites, web presence

The Global Map of the Social Web, newly published by Trendstream, illustrates country-by-country the already enormous Web 2.0 footprint.

Not surprisingly, the rapid increase in social media usage has generated a corresponding increase in blogs, videos, photos and other social media content.

For you and me as social media consumers, our choices seem endless. New content is created at a daunting rate. Conversely, as content producers, we find it more and more difficult to penetrate the growing social media clutter.

This competition among sites and content will further intensify over time. We therefore need to find ways to compensate and stay consistently in front of our intended audiences. Here are eight ideas that can help:

1. Build a Large Web Presence - Search engines and plain old geometry will work on your behalf. The better you do in the search engines and the more social media territory you can effectively cover, the more exposure you will receive, both in reach and frequency.
2. Leverage Multiple Traffic Sources - Using many traffic sources will help you create a large web presence, and you’ll benefit in other ways too. Read Looking for Traffic in All the Wrong Places.
3. Develop Relationships - Engage with those who engage with you. Not only will they keep coming back, but so will the people who enjoy the conversation but remain silent. Focus on helping by letting people vent or by providing helpful information. Be social!
4. Offer Many Ways for Friends to Subscribe or Follow - People will naturally connect through more than one info stream. E.g., I’ve set up a blogcast, an RSS feed, a Twitter account, a Facebook page and profile, a NetworkedBlogs page, my own Ning site, a LinkedIn profile, a Business Exchange profile, a BlogCatalog group, and half a dozen other ways to keep in touch. Each one has throughput of one to ten percent, but collectively they all add up. That’s how social media list building needs to work. An RSS feed alone is insufficient.
5. Be Reliable and Consistent - Do what you say you’re going to do, and publish new content as consistently as possible. Being somewhat predictable will help people get to know you and will build trust.
6. Promote Others - Say good things about your readers, link to their content, and link to the content of others in your industry. Be a team player. Goodwill is an invaluable asset.
7. Focus - Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to be everything to everybody or by trying to be active on many social networking sites. Concentrate on communicating your brand and message to your intended audience.  Get the most you can from the time and effort you invest.
8. Collaborate - Strategic alliances and synergies are a big part of my plan for 2010, and perhaps they ought to be part of your plan too.

How do you penetrate social media clutter?

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Tags: Search Engines, Social Media, social networking sites, Web 2.0, web presence

A shorter article than the past one.

Privacy and spam concerns continue to induce Facebook and Ning to make changes that hurt marketers. Facebook, for example, will end network affiliations, while Ning has already disabled the sharing of any content across participating sites.

Good-Bye Facebook Networks

Facebook members now use school, city of company network affiliations to control access to their personal content.

Since network affiliation is less relevant than it had been at the network’s conception, and since  the display of network affiliation can jeopardize members’ privacy and security, Facebook is replacing affiliation-based permissions with a friendship-based alternative.

This solution better protects Facebook members.

However, it also takes away an important targeting mechanism from honest business users wishing to find people in the regions where they operate.

Thanks Ning for Duplicate Messages

If you and I are friends at several Ning sites, I probably send you duplicate messages. Since I can no longer share content across sites, I send the same information from several sites, and you receive that information multiple times. I try to minimize duplication but haven’t yet eliminated it.

Ning has made it less convenient for spammers.

However, if a spammer is motivated enough, you’ll now receive their spam several times instead of once.

Good-News Bad-News

The good news is that social networking sites will continue their efforts to safeguard the privacy and security of members and to create an enjoyable networking experience… great when we have on our networking hats.

The bad news is that more safeguards can mean more limited access to members, and when we have on our marketing hats… not so great!

What are your thoughts on this hot topic?

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Tags: business networking, Facebook, Marketing, Ning, Ning social network, privacy, security, social networking sites, SPAM

Connecting on social networking sites with family and friends requires little forethought or planning. The most popular social networks are easy enough to figure out, even without instruction manuals.

Most of us would agree that social networking sites are easy to use for casual networking.

On the other hand, reaching out to your target audience on social networking sites requires both planning and an appreciation of the fine points of each site. Social networking sites are not easy to use when it comes to marketing.

Facebook in particular is one social networking site that even experienced marketers struggle with, especially using profiles, pages, groups and apps in an appropriate and effective manner.

She Purged All of Her Friends on Facebook

Recently, I was contacted by a Facebook connection who happens to be some kind of celebrity. She was migrating her thousands of friends from her profile to her fan page, so that she could remove them from her profile.

At first glance, this is the Facebook equivalent of unfollowing all your friends on Twitter. However, you realize that it’s even more extreme once you think about it.

Removing her friends on Facebook, she gave up her access to their profile information and status updates. Either she was desperate for privacy or hadn’t adequately considered the consequences or didn’t care much about connecting with the fans who were following her.

Separating Business from Personal on Facebook

Yesterday, a marketing friend informed me that he was trying to separate “business from personal” on Facebook. He had set up a fan page and asked me to send people there rather than to his profile.

He also informed me that he was “trying to get to 100 members, so I could get a vanity URL” and asked if I had any suggestions.

This same friend is working on attracting his target audience to his Ning social networking site which may partially justify his separating business from personal on Facebook. Nevertheless, connecting as Facebook friends offers so many excellent networking opportunities that one can’t fully justify passing it up.

Furthermore, his difficulty reaching 100 fans for his page is a sign to me that perhaps he’d be better off starting by building a base of Facebook friends from which he could later draw members for his page.

In Conclusion

A feature on one of the social networking sites may attract you, such as the ability to have an unlimited number of fan page members on Facebook, but it’s critical to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each strategy and tactic.

With Facebook groups for example, you can only have 5,000 members, but you can send group messages directly to the inboxes of all those members. That capability may be more useful to you that having unlimited members.

A modest investment of time speaking with an online social networking or social  marketing expert could dramatically increase the value of the subsequent time you spend marketing on social networking sites.

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Tags: Facebook, Marketing Strategy, online social networking, social marketing, social networking sites, social networking strategy

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