Digital Handshake pages 77-96 (Social Networks)
Chapter 8 Social Networks Strengthen Your Social Graph
While social networks have existed since man existed, but the Internet has allowed us to make our networks larger faster. People now take participating in these networks as a matter of fact.
- You never know where leads may come from, keeping a presence on many social network sites makes sense.
- The more profiles you have the more it seems like you are everywhere and have a feel for what is going on.
- Search engines now give results from social network sites so they can help people find you when they search for your company.
- Your profile (business or personal) should be created with the intent of your audience finding you and on places that they would find you on. (Make sure you complete your profile before contacting others on the network however).
- Your profile and your photo are you
- Just as you work the room in real life networking, do so in on line networks. Post comments and write posts, but do not pitch
- Friending some one is the equivalent of asking for a business card.
- Figure out who you can connect with (not everyone) and figure out how you can be helpful to them.
LinkedIn is Your Business Suit
LinkedIn is designed to be a place where you can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals to help you accomplish your goals. The first thing you should do is create a detailed profile that summarises your professional expertise and accomplishments and then begin to build relationships.
Try not to pimp yourself or your company. Be yourself and be sincere, you will attract people who are similar to you. See how you can help others, and they will want to reciprocate to you.
Facebook is Business Casual
Face book is a social utility to connect you to other people. It combines both business and personal sides. By using a 'public profile' a business can set up an identity similar to a personal profile. Fans can express themselves on your wall. The public profile is open to search engines indexing as well. Events can be used to promote something your business is doing. Groups can tie you in to other people that share a common bond.
Facebook dose have ads, but the click through rate for them is very low. Applications (Apps) can be created that can give your business some name recognition.
Facebook Lexicon looks through all the wall posts and returns aggregate data of what is trending. The share button can be put on your site so that people can share a page of yours and drive traffic to you. Facebook Connect allows people to log into a web site using Facebook credentials.
It is essential to have a personal presence on as well. Not all your networking will be business like and people will want to connect to you, not the business.
Twitter is the Social Networking Cocktail Party
This is the place to casually interact with others.
Other Business-Oriented Social Networks
Plaxo - cross between LinkedIn and Facebook that has a business feel to it.
Ecademy - similar to LinkedIn, strong in Europe, not so much the states, face to face networking
Biznik - business networking for people who are not job seekers
MySpace - entertainment focused social network.
Ten Commandments of Social Networking
- Pull, don't Push - do not heavily push your product
- Win the right to be heard - you are judged by what you contribute to the community
- Content is still king (conversation is queen and conversion is the prince)
- Authenticity and Transparency are social networking cornerstones
- You do not have to be on every social network - be where customers are
- Give and you will receive - help other and you will help yourself
- Do not throw the marketing baby out with the bath water
- Social media is a mindset, not a toolset
- Be yourself
- Social media is not a religion
Social Media Marketing, pages 53-76 (Social Networking)
Social network is a website where people connect. It had its start in the computer bulletin board systems of the 1980's. Later content providers like AOL allowed for more than just the local content of the bbs. As the Internet increased in popularity web sites started to create the community feel. In 2002, Friendster started as a non dating dating site, 2003 brought about MySpace and Facebook.
Protocol - common elements across all social networking sites
- Profiles
Profiles are for people and contain information about them as well as pictures, etc. - Connecting
Social networks were created to make connections to real people. - Private Messaging
- Public Messaging
Don't share anything you would not want to send to your boss or your mother. - Groups
Collection of People who share a common interest - Photos
Marketers can use this to create campaigns about their product by having people send pictures of themselves using the product the company makes. - Applications
Sites create and 'application programming interface' that allows third parties to add things to the site. These can be used to market business but make sure they have value to the user. - Status Updates
Tells people what other people are doing - Privacy
Be aware of the age of the group that you are dealing with. Older people tend to be more concerned, younger not so much, and children should not be encouraged to give up information at all.
Facebook is currently the dominate social network site.
- Pages - Public face of your business on Facebook, it is the centrepiece where all other parts come from. Blog and Twitter feeds should also be added here by use of apps that will let you do so.
Social network site for business professionals.
- Introductions - ways to meet people who know people who know people.
- Recommendations - short endorsements of people they know that become referrals.
- Answers - people ask questions that you can answer and they can be answered by you to show where you specialise in things.
Frist of the social networks to allow customisation. Appeals mostly to teens and musicians.
- MySpace has Blogs that allow for people to easily post information about self or businesses.
- Bulletins are announcements that go to all your 'friends'
- MySpace for Musicians - MySpace has extensive tools that allow musicians to connect with their fans.
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