Are you ‘social networking’ or just communicating online?
Posted by Richard Griffiths on 3 November 2008
In Communication, Online Marketing
A recent study carried out by Synovate suggests that over half of the global population does not know what social networking is. There is little wonder. In a bid to sound new, fresh and interesting there is a constant stream of new jargon that is thrown at us every day and social networking is definitely one of those terms.
So, it is not surprising that most people glaze over when you say ’social networking’. You might even be doing it now. Talk about Web 2.0, RSS, podcasts and wikis and you’ll probably doze off altogether…
But the merest mention Facebook or MySpace and people suddenly wake up.
You see, nobody decides “Ooh, I think I’ll do some social networking tonight”, they just want to go on Facebook to check out the messages and photos from their friends. So they may not know what social networking is, but they are probably doing it and simply don’t realise!
The same is true for your business communications. I bet you didn’t block out some time in your diary for ’social networking’, but you’re reading this blog and you are bound to have an opinion on it.
That’s when social networking has the potential to become really powerful as it allows you to build awareness of your business simply by getting involved and communicating with new people. So when you’ve finished reading this blog, remember to post a reply and you’ll be on your way to global fame and fortune (OK, that’s not guaranteed, but you’ve definitely made a start!)
As well as blogging, you might also want to check out Linked In which enables you to exchange information, ideas and opportunities with 25million professionals. Now that’s a pretty impressive business contact list.
Those of us with grey hair may pour scorn on this idea of online networking. After all what’s wrong with simply talking to each other? Nothing, but the Synovate survey also found that, unsurprisingly, younger people were far more aware of and actively used social networking sites. So, although social networking might not be taking over the world yet, it has enormous potential which is increasing as these younger users become the business contacts of tomorrow.
Online communication is now a central part of our work and personal lives and it is here to stay, so you have to use it to your business’ advantage.
Just remember to ditch the jargon and say what you mean!
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Loading ...Tags: Facebook, RSS, Social Media, Social networking, web 2.0
December 19th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Johan Persson wrote:
Whether your business is active online through social media or not, people are still going to comment on and have opinions about your company and activities. This dialogue takes place in a great number of venues and keeping track of them is not always easy.
Brian Solis and Jesse Tomas illustrate this very well in their online conversation chart called “The conversation prism”:
http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html
Being a part of the dialogue requires a strategic decision and resources. An example of this is the Ford Motor Co. Scott Monty is responsible for social media at Ford. I connected to him through twitter.com:
http://twitter.com/ScottMonty
Initially I did not understand Twitter. What is the meaning of “texting” 140 characters into Cyberspace? However, after two days of use I got the message. Through Twitter I was able to interact with people, share ideas, build networks, have dialogues, make business connections etc.
Twitter led me on to sharing images through flickr.com, sharing interesting bookmarks through delicious.com, sharing documents on scribd.com and many other things.
Whether you have the full social media newsroom or you just have dialogues and interaction through a blog; you need to think about why you are there and what you wish to achieve. The more you do your homework and then form a strategy, the more succesful your effort stand to be.
The dialogue is out there. Care to join it?
http://www.twitter.com/pr_persson
December 19th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I started out with Social ‘exploring’ over 18 months ago, and must say that once you understand how things work they are really fun and effective tools for any size business to use.
I never grasped Twitter and now appreciate its function and am getting into better habits of using it.
The recent strategy I wrote incorporated how to take common threads through Twitter, blog posts and Linkedin effectively and when i reread my work realised it is all so simple to do and makes so much sense.
Everyone has an expertise and opinion and there is so much to learn, I speak with people within my company as well as people around the world, learning from them and about the work they do. what other medium could offer this opportunity.
With the current economic climate it makes learning easy without having the expense and time of travelling to conferences – a lesson to be learnt from this?
January 21st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Katie mentions that ‘everyone is an expert’, and I recently stumbled across ‘Squidoo’, which has 900,000 articles which is exactly what this site is about. Are you an expert in a subject and can you shout about it?
What I did not realise this that Squidoo is founded by one of my marketing Guru Hero’s. A guy called Seth Godin, who has written great marketing books like ‘Purple Cow’. Squidoo started from Seths blog subscribers, who wanted to be alerted when he posted up a new blog. His marketing message is quite simple. If you are not ‘remarkable’ you will not get noticed. A ‘purple cow’ is remarkable for a while, but an ordinary cow just does not get talked about. Hence Squidoo came to being to provide a social network expert site come blog come website tool.
An here I am talking about this ‘remarkable’ site!
February 4th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
On the cusp of a new age, like the dawning of Aquarius (!), People are still resistant to web 2.0 and social interaction when they just don’t see a need. Like the point made about ‘why don’t I just go and meet my friends in the pub?’ People are fearful of losing that social interaction in the real physical world. Especially those generations that are entering the internet as a foreigner rather than growing up in it as an accustomed native. There is definitely a bridge to cross between these two worlds and associated minds.
From a business perspective in many companies the new social media talked about here is considered a distraction and often curtailed. Probably with logical reasoning; you don’t go to Facebook to buy, you go to meet your friends. It’s just the forward thinkers out there in business that are beginning to utilise social media to its full potential.
For me, that’s the message we need to invite businesses and corporations to grasp. It’s the sub-currents facilitated by these sites that you’re asking companies and consumers to buy. ‘I’ve seen you on Facebook so now I am aware of you. Now, where do I go to find out more and how will I know whether you are a trustworthy source?’ (There’s a whole world of exploration to understand online behaviour/trust here). Anyway my point: that it’s amazing what will enter the mind subliminally and these sites provide a new, more subtle, advertising arena and a covert yet trusted way into building brand familiarity.
Web 2.0 doesn’t just signal changes to online technology either, it marks the emergence of new, more demanding, human behaviours which are revealing themselves in both the physical and online worlds. Consumers want a different interaction and are rewarding websites that allow collaborative opinions and knowledge sharing as a path to purchase. For some businesses I understand that this is dangerous territory (risk in loss of status and reputation can be costly), yet for others, moving with the changing terrain it’s a raison d’etre. We as E marketers need to persuade those businesses still in the dark, to step out of the pub into the light!
February 6th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Adding this to my bookmarks. Thank You