What is Social Networking?
Social Networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups. Since the huge growth of the Internet allows individuals all over the world to communicate, social networking websites have become extremely popular. This section explains the basics of social networking and the advantages for bloggers and business.
Internet communities have arisen and people from most countries in the world can converse around a common interest. Membership to join these networks is usually free and all that is required is an Internet connection a web browser and the use of software (e.g Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace).
The Social Networks can focus on a niche like LinkedIn and MySpace or generalised like Facebook. There exist sites for all sorts of genres MySpace.com is popular with musicians whereas LinkedIn.com centres around professionals and their employment record and contacts.
Social Network Requirements
Social Networking working sites require certain amounts of personal information before you join and then allow you to create a personal profile, which can include photographs, location data, and anything else you would like to put onto the Internet.
Social Networking sites act as a self marketing mechanism for individuals and organisations. This amount of information helps to break down the anonymity between users and create relationships.
Individuals can become friends online without ever meeting in person. It is possible to keep this information in between a small group of chosen individuals but many people divulge lots of information freely throughout the communities.
The information passed through an individuals online account is collated by the social networking site. These practises are not without controversy Facebook Beacon, and Governmental concern Facebook and LinkedIn privacy issues.
Social Networking and Marketing – The Holy Grail
The goals of marketing are to monitor consumer behaviour, identify the consumers wants and needs and tailor the company’s marketing strategy around their products to meet the customers requirements.
Social Networking sites can help business:
- as a free marketing tool which enables the company to create an online community and interact with potential customers
- complement a company blog by either sending traffic to the blog, or advertising the blogs latest content updates with additional applications (widgets and plug-in’s) or with Social Bookmarking.
- helping to raise awareness of the company, and promote ideas, products and services in more than one online format.
- skip SEO ranking – Facebook has a huge online reputation and you can use Facebook and your company name to reach the first page on the major search engines.
- Social Networking technologies allow businesses to interact with the customer and gain valuable customer feedback
- Pay Per Click Ads allows advertising to target very specific groups (see Facebook ads for UK).
The Promotional tools social networking sites have available for individuals, bloggers and companies to take advantage of is incredible. The chance to promote yourself and your business and to have access to targeted segmented markets is fantastic.
The downside to open social networks could be as more and more users become more aware of privacy issues it may have a knock on effect on the Social Networking Sites. The golden rule is “Never put anything online that you don’t want people to see”. So far issues with online privacy do not appear to have stopped thousands of people registering for online social networking services.
The development of the web depends on people being more open with their information, this includes companies and individuals. The Semantic Web or Web 3.O is the anticipated future of information exchange over the Internet. To make this happen more information is needed about our habits so services can become more intelligent and information can be tailored to our needs or the needs of companies. For more information on Social Media and on the Semantic Web
Forms Of Social Media
Each form of Social Media listed below has a link explaining the method of use and how people, bloggers, and Small Business can use these technologies.
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