Strategic Social Networking - Archive

Social Marketing – Not an Option

January 29th, 2010 | Posted by admin in branding | News - (0 Comments)

Brand is important in today’s crowded, contentious marketplace. Savvy business owners and individuals trying to establish their personal brand have to get social. Without brand awareness, a company or business professional may not exist.

In Five Examples of Innovation of Twitter, the importance of creating and building a community explains that a new medium is available and delivers results. Companies that have cracked the code, according to Neville Hobson include McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, 7-11, H&R Block, and Subway. He said, “In a little more than a year, @DunkinDonuts scored more than 38,000 followers by creating a place where people can share their Dunkin’ Donuts experiences. The company focuses on creating a place where people can talk about how much they love Dunkin’ Donuts products.”

The idea is to provide information, special offers, even coupons via Facebook or Twitter.

SSN believes that you couldn’t create better advertising than that of fans singing a company’s or your praises. Here’s why. A social network reacts instantly in real time to information. The interconnections guarantee that the favorable or unfavorable comments can have an immediate impact.

Dell Computers and a growing number of large companies are using social media to send out promotional news and advertise new products or even existing ones. If you don’t have a Facebook.com “business” page, set one up. If you accept the security defaults, the information you post will be available to other Facebook users and any new content will be indexed by Web search companies like Bing.com and Google.com.To sum up, a social presence is not an option. When a big company figures it out, it is time to get social and manage your company’s and your personal brand.

Lauren

Note: Post was not sponsored.

Want Your Page Promoted on Twitter? TweetMeme Will Help, for a Price

January 29th, 2010 | Posted by admin in News | Twitter - (0 Comments)

With Twitter continuing to dominate the short, 140-character or less social media world, many business have used it to advertise sales, respond to customers, and promote their wares. But how do you raise your exposure in a sea of millions of tweets? Enter TweetMeme, a Digg-esque site that aggregates the popular links on Twitter, rated by tweets (á la “Diggs”). With its “Featured Tweets” advertising model, businesses can pay to have their story listed third on TweetMeme’s front page, as well as tagged to a particular channel or category. TweetMeme claims this will “tap into the viral nature of Twitter and the ‘retweet effect’” but businesses should be wary of dropping big bucks into these sponsored links as it still requires viewers to visit TweetMeme site and actively click the link. More information can be found at http://tweetmeme.com/about/advertising/featured_tweets.

Sam Hartman

Note: Post was not sponsored.

Is ‘Social Media Basics’ Too Basic?

January 29th, 2010 | Posted by admin in jobs | News | prospecting - (0 Comments)

Punch Communications’ soon-to-be-released article series about social media in public relations aims to “provoke conversation.” This company is one of many jumping on the social media bandwagon. The angle is to use “free” information to generate customer leads. The idea is a good one, but like other consulting firms, the marketers are combining education with old-fashioned sales. Punch does suggest that it is on the lookout for talented professionals and currently has opportunities available, so networkers and job seekers may find it worth their while to read the article series, if only to have good talking points at their initial job interview. However, our view is that the white paper is designed to sell, not recruit.

Melody K. Smith, Feb. 1, 2010

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Ning: Revisiting Growth Estimates

January 26th, 2010 | Posted by admin in Features - (1 Comments)

At lunch one of my colleagues made a comment about TMSN. I asked him, “What do you mean??

His reply, “Too many social networks.” I agreed. Lists of social networking services go out of date quickly. We assembled a list of social networking search systems in December 2009 and updated it last week. A half dozen search systems had disappeared.

We have been investigating the high profile social networking services like Ning.com and LinkedIn.com. Ning.com was founded by Marc Andreessen (Netscape fame) and Gina Bianchini. The word “ning” means peace to some folks and a province or city in China to others.

The company says:

Ning is the social platform for the world’s interests and passions online. Millions of people every day are coming together across Ning to explore and express their interests, discover new passions, and meet new people around shared pursuits.

Not long ago, an acquaintance at a major newspaper told me that his colleagues were using Ning with great success. Ning’s customers include:

ASPCA Online Community
CBS
CW
Fine Living
Fire Fighter Nation
Fuji Film
Pickens Plan
Saturn Car Company
WD 40

Fast Company in April 2008 wrote “Ning’s Infinite Ambition”. The write up was a good one and provided a range of useful data about the service. One fact jumped out at me:

By New Year’s Even 2010, Ning estimates it will host some four million social networks serving up billions of page views daily.

I recalled that number when I read on January 19, 2010, Digital Beat’s “Ning Now Supports 2 Million Social Networks, Touches Up Branding.” Compete.com reports more than 6.0 million visitors but the chart I saw on January 26, 2010 revealed a possible issue:

Source: Compete.com, January 26, 2010

The trend seems to be drifting downward. Seasonal drop off? Probably. But when I put together the aggressive estimates in the Fast Company story and the information in VentureBeat, I wondered if the type of social networking services that won over my newspaper acquaintance may be slipping behind the newer, more lightweight services.

When we discussed this issue at lunch today (January 26, 2010), several points emerged from our discussion.

First, the number of social networking services is increasing. As a result, the “winner take all” characteristic of some online services may be kicking into gear. The sharp rise in Facebook traffic over the last two years has been well documented in the Web log space and in the popular press. Twitter.com has become the poster child of the micro-blogging sector. With these two services surging, Ning.com may be on the sharp end of two competitors’ sticks.

Ning.com’s service line up is robust. The service’s usability is excellent. Ning.com supports rich media. There’s an option to use one’s own domain name for a modest fee. There are nice automation hooks such as automated tweets when new content is posted.

That brings us to the second point.

To make use of a single, feature rich networking service takes time and effort. Our discussion group converged on the point that only a small percentage of those interested in social networks will make a serious commitment. As a result, services that are lighter weight gain the upper hand in terms of growth. Ease of use may be a perception issue, but in the viral world of social networking services, the implicit perception may dominate even if it is objectively inaccurate. Ning.com, therefore, may have a PR fight on its hands.

Third, social networking services for business are difficult to separate from the social networking services for fun. Most organizations have some nay-sayers when it comes to strategic social networking. The serious services like Ning.com and others aiming at business professionals have to face a reality that we encountered in a recent client engagement.

The company president was interested in social networking in general and wanted a Web log that would allow the organization to build a community. The technical advisors to the company pointed out that Facebook.com could deliver what the company president wanted at a low cost. The senior management went with the Facebook.com approach, ignoring the potential of a Ning.com or other more professional service.

We learned that the value of the more sophisticated social networking services like Ning.com did not compute for this particular retail operation. Furthermore, the idea of making a commitment to social networking as part of the company’s marketing program did not compute.

SSN wants Ning.com and other professional social networking services to recognize that more effort is needed to reach decision makers in organizations. We at SSN know that the Web 2.0 type of marketing works well in some situations. We are not certain if those marketing methods will reach the C level executives in most businesses. More and better marketing are needed in our opinion.

Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2010

Note: Post was not sponsored.

case study

Social Sources with a Business Spin

January 25th, 2010 | Posted by admin in Features - (0 Comments)

Social media resources are proliferating. The problem facing some business professionals is “Where do we begin?” There is no single answer because SSN’s work has revealed that combinations of social media actions are needed in order to get results that pay off. Posting information for your friends and family on Facebook.com is a wonderful way to keep in touch and share pictures. However, a person looking for a consulting project or a company seeking to build a supplier network for a new business initiative needs results.

We have compiled a list of 15 resources that you can use with what SSN calls a “business spin.” The idea is simple. Look through the list and select two that fit your business needs; for example, creating a Web log (Xanga.com) and posting a PowerPoint (Scribd). The idea is that your Web log contains an article about the PowerPoint, and you link to the Scribd version of your talk. Another combination is monitoring tweets on particular topic (Digsby) and looking for individuals in a particular geographic area (TwitterLocal). You can experiment with different combinations of social media methods. The number of new services continues to increase, so even the social media pros need to experiment and explore.

Here’s SSN’s list of 15 social media “chemicals” with which you can experiment:

Site	Application for business
Bebo	If you want to reach the UK, Bebo is one method
Digsby	Another dashboard type application
Facebook	Create a Facebook presence for your business
LinkedIn	With regular attention a potentially useful source of leads and contacts
Newsvine	Registered users can publish articles
Scribd	Post your PowerPoints and white papers for contacts and prospects to access
Tweepz	Search for people on Twitter by their name
Tweetdeck	An application (dashboard) to help you manage your social media activities and information
Twitter	Your broadcast mechanism; a complement, not the main dish on your social media menu
Twitter Local	Track tweets in a geographic area
TwtQpon	Create a coupon for your business and distribute them as tweets
Xanga	A free blogging service with profiles, video and picture hosting and more
Yelp	List your business. Service is changing from “soft” to more substantive content
YouTube	Host your professional videos on YouTube
Yuku	A free service to allow you to build your own social community

We will add to this list over time. If you hit upon combinations that deliver a payoff for you, please, share them via the comments section to this Web log.

Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2010

Note: Post was not sponsored.

List

Social Networking Is the New SEO

January 22nd, 2010 | Posted by admin in Features - (0 Comments)

Traditional search engine optimization methods – the SEO tricks of tag spam and semi-relevant backlinks among other tricks – no longer lift a Web site’s page rank. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo engineers have worked to find ways to identify bogus methods and have, in part, succeeded.

For most Web sites, the long road to appearing in the first page of a search results list begins with content. But excellent content is not enough. The content must be refreshed and new, substantive content added. Experts disagree about how often a Web site’s content must be updated, but most agree on one key point: New content is needed. Unfortunately high quality content takes time and effort.

If you have good content and want to leverage, there are some new ways to repurpose content and get some additional mileage out of your information. What’s important is that the method can be implemented when you do add a new article or update an existing Web article.

The combination of your original content and social media produces three benefits.

First, you are shifting from SEO tricks to content leveraging. The change in focus gives you new opportunities to reach potential customers or partners without running into problems with the digital watchdogs looking for relevance ranking spoofs and tricks.

Second, you can tap into the power of social media to get your information to a larger audience. For many of these individuals, a link back to your core Web site will mean an opportunity to provide more in-depth information to this site visitor. More traffic usually translates into signals to the Web indexing companies that your site is important.

Third, the use of your content in social media generates new information. If you have a Web log, you can summarize or supplement information on your Web site. By activating the comments feature of the Web log, you invite those who read the Web log to submit their remarks. You can contact this individual and request additional information and then post that information on your Web site. Alternatively, you can summarize the comments a Web log article generates in a new article for your Web site. You are not duplicating content; you are creating new information for your Web site.

The diagram below provides an illustration of a single Web site that is little more than an island sitting in a vast ocean of Internet-accessible information. The flows of data rush past the island, and it is difficult for most Web sites to generate meaningful traffic. In our experience at SSN and Beyond Search, a single Web site is almost invisible even if indexed by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

The diagram below shows how a basic strategic social networking “mesh” operates. An island is essentially a single shot for a person or an organization. It is isolated and may be anchored to other content via links. The “mesh” works almost like a digital fishing net and “catches” more opportunities to communicate.

Instead of a single way of reaching people, the two social functions amplify the impact of your content. The math looks like 3 * 2 * 1 = 6. This is a dramatic improvement from the 1 = 1 math of a basic Web site.

Keep in mind that the addition of social media “amplifiers” does not eliminate the need for you to create new content. You will be generating more content because you have to produce a blog post and instruct your blog software to generate a “tweet” that a new story has been posted. You can make this simple sequence of content activities add impact to your content and produce traffic to your Web site.

With some effort, you can convert comments to blog stories into new content for your Web site. The Twitter outputs are your personal broadcasting station about the information on your Web site.

Let’s recap. The use of social media—in this case a Web log or blog and automated “tweets”—put your content into the real-time information channel. The blog post and the “tweets” point back to your core Web site. The idea is to create new information for the Web site, post a synopsis of the new content on the blog, and then “tweet” about the new story.

If you do not create new content for your Web site, the effectiveness of these interlinked communication media is diminished. Properly staged, you can use social media to generate more traffic to your Web site and increase the likelihood that your Web site will appear higher in a search results list.

We call this method of amplification the SSN triple tap method. To learn more, write us at ssnblog at gmail dot com. We are delighted to talk without fee or obligation. We hope you will find our approach useful and that you will want our team of social media experts to assist you.

Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2010

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