69. Social Media Networks
As more people begin to use social media, it will ultimately be the users who define which social networking sites will make it and which ones won’t. As new sites come and go, you will need to experiment to find the best social networks that work for you and your business. Some people swear by LinkedIn and others prefer Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or a more targeted network like NING. It just depends on your business and industry. It’s also a matter of personal preference and the networks that clients, prospects, colleagues, and business associates use.
Remember, the value of social media is connecting and communicating. It will be more effective to be selective rather than spread your efforts across too many networks. If you try to take on too much, chances are you’ll find it overwhelming or not as effective as you would if you were to prioritize your efforts.
The following information summarizes the key benefits and attributes of the three of most popular social media preferences: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
While MySpace and Facebook are extremely popular and have larger networks, LinkedIn has found a niche with business professionals who use the platform to network and market their business. It has also become an effective network for communities, associations, and organizations.
LinkedIn has grown to over 52 million members and professes to have the “world’s largest audience of affluent, influential professionals.” In addition to networking, finding and staying connected with people in your personal network is a key benefit of LinkedIn. Despite how many times people change jobs or email addresses, they stay connected through LinkedIn, and for this reason alone it is a valuable business networking service. It synchronizes with Microsoft Outlook contacts, so as you add new contacts, you can also add them to your LinkedIn database and build your network.
Your personal profile page generally includes information about your company and brand, and it should succinctly communicate your personal brand and work experience. Many people use LinkedIn for finding new jobs and careers, to seek referrals and endorsements, and to give referrals to others. When people want to hire an individual with specific skills, they might ask for recommendations from people they trust in their network. Like other social networking tools, the more you use it, the more valuable it becomes. You need to invest time to add connections, give or ask for referrals, and keep your profile current. You can also start or join a group to connect with people in organizations, associations, and universities to build your network. Participate in the groups you join. You can comment or start a blog post, make announcements to the group, ask questions to help with research, and participate in several other ways. All of these things will also improve your Google page rank since your profile can be searched.
Facebook was launched in 2004 as a social network exclusively for Harvard Students. Within just four months, 30 colleges had joined the network. Today there are more than 300 million active users from 170 countries.
Nielsen reports that Facebook is the number-one social networking site. Over 4 million users become fans of Facebook’s public profile page every day. As the average user has 100 friends linked to their site and adding more each day, Facebook continues to grow exponentially. It’s also popular among the one million developers who have developed more than 52,000 applications.
For businesses that want to tap into the power of Facebook, it’s important to apply a few marketing basics. First of all, understand that the audience is still young demographically and skews more heavily toward females. If you sell power tools, Facebook probably won’t be your first choice in brand building. But if you are thinking like Victoria’s Secret, you will have success. The fan page created to promote their PINK line has been extremely successful because it aligns perfectly with the demographics of Facebook.
Victoria’s Secret was also successful because they effectively promote their Facebook page, as well as links to their MySpace page, on the PINK website landing page. By promoting multiple ways that consumers can connect with the brand, it builds fans across all platforms.
When a fan page was created by two passionate Coke enthusiasts, the company could have leveled a velvet hammer in an attempt to control the site content. Instead, they rewarded the two fans with a trip to Coke headquarters in Atlanta. This created even more passion and enthusiasm for the brand and other successful groups rallied around Coke. By giving up some control and letting fans influence the brand, Coke now has the number-one product fan page on Facebook.
Like other social networking sites, the practice of providing valuable resources to users, as well as offering coupons, incentives, or contests, creates pass-along value. Give your fans something to talk about and watch your idea take fire.
If you believe in the premise that short, quick bits of information are valuable, maybe even more valuable than long bursts of information, then you will love Twitter, a micro-blogging service founded in 2007. Twitter is growing in popularity faster than any other social networking service. Within a year, more than 2.2 million accounts were generated.1 By June 2009, Web-tracking firm Compete reported that Twitter had grown an astounding 1,928 percent in just a year.
People use Twitter to answer the question, “What are you doing?” with far-ranging topics from eating a donut to announcing a new product launch. They also share information about people, companies, news stories, products—really anything.
Twitter may be thought of as frivolous by some people, but it has been used for important causes. Twitter helped free an American from an Egyptian jail, provided the latest news on events like the San Diego fire, and broke industry news such as the financial crisis. It’s also used for raising money for charities and promoting a brand. Celebrities love Twitter. Ashton Kutcher has nearly 4 million followers, and Oprah, Obama, and Britney all have a huge number of followers.
Twitter is a marketing channel to build your brand, create customer loyalty, and leverage the power of social influence. It is easier than ever before for people to endorse a product or a company in their personal network. Of course, the flip side of that is it’s also very easy for consumers to vilify a company.
Many businesses that were quick to embrace Twitter now have a small army of avid followers. Jet Blue (@jetblue) and Home Depot (@TheHomeDepot) are just a couple that Twitter. Topics range from employee interests and community involvement to resolving customer service issues. But beware: Pimping products is considered bad behavior. The way to build your brand is through personal customer communication, community interests, social causes, and being a helpful resource to people.
A common way to use Twitter and build your own army of followers is to make ample use of the retweet function, which is a lot like forwarding an email to people in a database. According to Dan Zarella, a social, search, and viral marketing scientist, nearly 70 percent of all retweets contain a link to a news source, article, blog, website, or content of value. It’s difficult to say something meaningful in 140 characters or less, so it’s much more effective to link to valuable content such as breaking news, “How To’s,” and instructional content. Other avid Tweeters swear that tweeting unusual or strange content garners the most comments and retweets. What’s unusual and strange you might ask? A tweet about a boy born with two heads, a cat that can sing, an ant colony that is taking over the world, or a Jerry Springer moment (did anyone say “National Enquirer?”).
If you want more helpful hints, check out the Twitter Guidebook on Mashable or other helpful online resources. Start using some of the latest and greatest Twitter applications like Tweetdeck to sort, search, respond, organize, and manage your Twitter activities. And don’t forget to download a mobile Twitter application like Twitterific so you can Tweet to your heart’s content from anywhere your mobile device takes you.
Guy Kawasaki is the author of several bestselling books and the CEO of Garage.com, a Silicon Valley-based company that funds and works with early stage start-ups. He offers more helpful hints on how to use and optimize Twitter. As an early Twitter evangelist with a huge following, he is qualified to be “Trusted Twitter Tutor.” Here is his advice to help you get started.
Social Bookmarking Sites
Bookmarking sites lets users search, tag, organize, and share Web pages on the Internet. A tag is simply a word to describe a bookmark, and on sites such as Delicious, your bookmarked tags are organized by topic. Similar to social networking, social bookmarking sites like Delicious have become a popular way for people to share information with each other. Bookmarks are saved by the user and made public by sharing them with specific people in their network. Most sites let viewers see other bookmarked content that is similar to a tag and some include the number of people who have bookmarked the site, as well as the ability to add comments. Some social bookmarking sites also provide web feeds with topics organized by tags.
Digg is an example of a different type of social bookmarking service that can be used to promote news stories about your company. By sending an article to customers and potential customers, or posting it on another web site, people can choose to Digg (or promote) a story if they like it. If a post receives enough “Diggs” from influential members, it is launched on the first page, creating instant fame for you and your company. Like Twitter, Digg can be used to build your company brand. Digg has 30 million users a month, so you can communicate with customers, prospects, or anyone who may have suggestions or ideas for your company.2
Another type of social bookmarketing site is StumbleUpon, which helps users find and share Web sites. When clicking the Stumble! button, the network delivers pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been recommended by the others with similar interests in the database of over 8 million users. When users rate sites they like, it automatically shares them with like-minded people in the network. StumbleUpon’s value proposition is that they deliver higher quality Web pages than other search engines because they are rated by members and sorted by personal interests and preferences. The database stays current as old or low-quality sites are removed if their ratings become too low.
Another nice benefit of social bookmarking is that tags help search engine rankings. To learn about other social bookmarking sites, consult the Social Media Tools section in the Social Media Strategy and Planning Guide (www.MarketSmarter.com).