Online Social Networking Sites

Agree or Disagree: No one has time to be part of all these online communities!

Thursday, July 23, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

We're all short on time. The work day flies by, deadline after deadline, and all of a sudden you find yourself counting down the minutes 'til you can jet back home, scarf down some dinner, and plop into your couch to deal with the rest of your life.

You could say online social networking sites have given us back some of that time by making it easier for us to keep in touch with more friends and family and replacing lengthy, time-consuming, in-person dialogue with a Facebook update here, a short little Tweet there. But man, it takes time to scan through three pages of activity stream updates and examine a hundred image-less, 140-character posts.

Does all that time spent on online communities and social networks make up for time that I supposedly gained by putting a good percentage of my life online anyway? Do I get more time to engage with things I really want to engage with, like improving growing conditions in my planted aquarium for instance?

Sometimes, I wonder.

Brands are taking advantage of the situation. They know that "two-thirds of the world's Internet population visit a social network or blogging site," according to Nielsen Online. Because we're spending more time in these "Member Communities," and less time in traditional marketing channels, brands are expanding their online presence and are increasingly vying for our attention in these spaces, hoping to engage us and improve brand awareness, reputation and sales. Over here, join my community! Look, we're on your social network! Hey dude, read our blog!

We each have plenty of interests. But do we have time for all this? In a recent post, I Don't Have Time To Be Part Of Your Online Community, on the blog, Coconut Headsets, Rob May muses the same thing:

Online communities are great for providing feedback and engagement with a brand, but he simply doesn't have enough time to participate in the online communities over every brand he uses.
It's not a matter of lack of passion or lack of interest in a product. He may love a brand but sees no reason to participate further.
Branded communities that will persuade him to participate are those that have a clear purpose, improve or streamline his life, and save him time.

QUESTIONS: Do you agree or disagree? Do you have time to join and participate in branded online communities? Do they provide value? What does it take to get your attention and sustain it? What advice do you have for brands? Give us an example.

Post a comment below, or if you want to enter our Community Contest for a chance to win a Flip video camcorder, and you have the time, submit your response here. Good luck.

Now back to reading Glee's updates on Facebook. I can't wait for this show to air on FOX this September...

Three Things Small Businesses Should Know About Social Media Branding

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

If you were to ask me what three things small businesses should know about social media branding, off the top of my head, here are my thoughts:

Social media branding doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg
While the big brands are spending tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on new social media advertising campaigns, you don't need to. These large campaigns usually consists of multiple, complex components and ad buys. The audience you're trying to reach is probably a much smaller or more local demographic and you just simply won't spend as much per eyeball. You can keep yours simpler.

There are free social media solutions like setting up a Facebook Page (formerly known as a Facebook Fan Page), a Twitter account to microblog updates about your company and its products, and a company blog using one of the many free blog platforms out there. If you're looking for something more sophisticated that combines many of the more popular features in online social networking sites, for a reasonable cost, you can check out a self-service, white-label social media platform like Reality Digital's Harmony product.

Costs you may incur include manpower and time to manage these initiatives. But even then, you aren't seeing the massive traffic that a big consumer brand like Pepsi might see, so an hour a day or every week could very well suffice, depending on your goals.
There are multiple ways to implement social media branding
Facebook. Twitter. Corporate blog. Online community. Social media contest. Where do you start and which ones do you implement? The answer is different for every small business. What you should be concerned with is determining what tools are relevant to your audience and how they will help you achieve your business goals. If you implement one and it fails, try something different. Consider a multi-program approach. Social media is not a magic bullet (at least not yet) and it takes time and patience to see results, as does all your other marketing activities. Try and try again.
Identify WHY you want social media
Above all, you must know why you're implementing social media into your marketing mix and how it maps back to your business goals. You wouldn't invest in a piece of new equipment if you didn't know why you needed it, would you? It's not just the cool factor. Social media branding should serve a purpose, whether that's to listen more closely to customers and provide a forum for dialogue, build awareness for your company and product, increase product sales, improve site traffic or countless other reasons. Once you know why you want social media, you'll have a much easier time justifying its cost, if any, and integrating it into your business.

I'm sure there are plenty of other things small businesses should be aware of when considering social media. What would you add to this list?

Fee or free: which social media strategy is right for your business?

Thursday, July 2, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

Social media technology has made it very easy for people to share their opinions, rate favorite products, and communicate with others. This activity is happening every day, everywhere, and for practically every product that exists. No matter how big or small your company is, if you have customers, you can bet they're talking about your brand or product somewhere. So what are you doing to influence that conversation?

If you're a small business, you probably have limited budget and resources and you need to be sure any investment you make in social media is worthwhile. Does it make sense to pay for a branded online social networking site or can free public social sites deliver the same benefits? Where do you start? What do you need to know?

Before you start any social networking marketing, it’s important to identify your goals. Why should your business take part in social media? There are many reasons for small businesses to adopt a social networking marketing strategy, including:

Increase brand awareness for your company
Drive improved customer relationships and better corporate reputation
Gain a better understanding of emerging issues and trends
Enhance product development and improvement efforts
Generate increased sales and incremental revenue

In addition to your budget, it’s also important to think about your internal resources for creating content and maintaining the site; what kind of content you want; how much control you want to have over the content on your site; and whether monetization is important to you. The answers to these questions will help you determine your level of investment and which strategy is best for you.

In our next two posts, we will explore how businesses can use free and branded online communities to their advantage, but we would love to hear and incorporate your thoughts. Tell us, do you think it make sense to pay for a branded online community or can free public social sites, like Facebook and Twitter, deliver the same benefits?

Share Interactions Between Facebook's Social Network and Your Social Media Community With Facebook Connect

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

Today we announced the release of a new integration for Reality Digital's social media platform: Facebook Connect. This feature enables users to log into Reality Digital-powered online social networking sites with their Facebook ID and immediately begin sharing content and activity between the two social media networks.

Many companies are exploring how to effectively run a social media campaign on Facebook but social networking marketing is so much more than than just advertising on the world's most popular social network. A number of our customers have successfully executed campaigns where general awareness built on public social networks like Facebook drive traffic back to a branded community site where members can more deeply engage with niche content and interact with other users who have like-minded interests.

Our Facebook Connect Integration enables Reality Digital customers to lower the barrier to entry by allowing users to immediately log in with their Facebook credentials, skipping registration and reducing the notion of "registration fatigue". Users then have full access to the site and can begin interacting with other members and content within that niche community. Sharing between the two social networks is easy. Users have the option to share activity and comments with their Facebook friends anytime they upload media, post a comment, write a blog post or create an event.

This cross-activity benefits the customer in several ways:

Extends campaign reach and increases community membership
Syndicates brand or community's content to a larger public social network and extends its life
Encourages viral distribution of content and return traffic
Increases audience for and engagement with branded content
Driving eyeballs and turning more page views for incremental ad revenue (if monetizing via advertising of course)

Overall, Reality Digital's Facebook Connect Integration makes it easier for people to discover and engage with your community by facilitating a seamless connection between the two communities. In return it makes it easier for community site owners to reach a greater critical mass and be able to monetize that.

Does a cross-social network strategy that Facebook Connect enables have a place in your social media campaign? Leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts and any instances of implementation, successful or not.

Adopting a Corporate Social Platform Part 1 - Why not Facebook?

Thursday, April 23, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

Just came across an interesting article on company social networks in bMighty and whether or not Facebook could be a viable option for hosting your intranet. The article shares a unique story where a midsize business has successfully adopted Facebook as a "radical" and free intranet solution and corporate social platform. With practically everyone now on Facebook, this seems like an easy way to connect employees already active on a social networking platform and a viable alternative to custom solutions that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build and require intensive resources to manage day to day.

Facebook, however, is a public online social networking site, a mass-aggregate community that probably includes in addition to your employees, your competitors. It is not an "enterprise platform from a security standpoint," the article mentions. If you're fine with the potential exposure of business-sensitive conversations and information as a result of Facebook's public nature, great. If that worries you, but you want to introduce social media and social networking into your company culture and keep data secure, consider adopting a corporate social platform for your company social network.

All this activity is available with a custom community platform and it can sit safely behind your company firewall to ensure security, according to Jeremiah Owyang, senior analyst for social computing at Forrester Research.

Built specifically for creating online communities where the use of online video and other media is central to communication, Reality Digital's Opus Platform is an enterprise-level social media platform that can be implemented as a "corporate social platform" behind your firewall to keep assets and interactions secure. This means you can take advantage of all the relationship building and resource sharing features you'd find on public social networks but in a secure, branded environment with content that is relevant to your employee base and safe from competitors. Opus Platform's high degree of customization enables you to dictate the right blend of features and security levels appropriate to your business and corporate culture, versus bowing to the limitations of Facebook.

Also keep in mind that with corporate social platforms, you own the site and all its content. You don't own a Facebook group; that content belongs to Facebook. In addition, you have little control over moderation and Facebook is probably monetizing your content in the process.

So why a company social network over a more traditional company intranet? I'll address that in part 2.

Green User Generated Media

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 by Cynthia Francis

Dinner with my 11 year old. Sushi. End of a long day, at the beginning of what promised to be a long week! But I really like my kids and find that they are great dinner companions.

My youngest still gets the kids menu and draws on it for the first part of the meal. And here is why I am blogging about this fairly common event. This restaurant has figured out that giving a kid (and her mom) a chalk board extends and enriches the whole engagement. No paper menu to produce, crayons to use once and toss, nor forced "connect the dots" games that are way below her/our interest level.

We drew a picture, shot a photo with our iPhone and uploaded it to various online social networking sites we frequent. We erased the board and drew some more. We took quick video of our silly conversation and sent it to Grandpa. An abundance of user generated content! Reusable, no trees killed, no limit to creativity and imagination. I was so impressed, I wanted to give them a "Best new use of Old Media" award. Lets start a campaign to do away with one-use kids menus and crayons and see all restaurants introduce chalkboards. Artistic ability aside, it is amazing how much fun we had with one board and a single piece of blue chalk.

Who connects?

Monday, April 13, 2009 by Cynthia Francis

I have been thinking a lot about what makes social media interesting, not from my perspective as CEO of Reality Digital, but as the mother of three teen and pre-teen daughters. The assumption is that teenagers are the most active participants in online social networking sites, and that everyone under the age of 30 is rabidly social online. That they are more inclined to connect with friends via Twitter and Facebook than by telephone or dates for shopping. That they would rather spend time online than outside. In truth, I find that like most things in life, the choice to spend time on a social platform is pretty individual. My 14-year-old twins are more interested in planning cooking parties with their friends, or taking walks or trips together than in connecting online. They participate in some Yahoo groups and use email, but my own involvement in online social communities exceeds theirs by a lot. The youngest of my children is 11, and for her texting is the big thing. Her relationship with her cell phone as a texting tool far surpasses the time spent talking on it, unless you count her calls with me. But given the opportunity my 11 year old spends time on YouTube and Club Penguin, and would be thrilled to have a Facebook page were she allowed. In part, that may be because she has grown up with the technology even more than her sisters, but in part it is because her personality tends toward greater social interaction in all ways. I notice that among my friends, those who spend a lot of time in online communities are naturally the most social and gregarious, while those who connect more deeply but with fewer people tend to avoid online communities in favor of in person or telephone connections. They have no desire for 500+ connections in cyberspace. Generalizations tend to be a waste of time, and assuming that there is inherent value for everyone in joining online social communities is exactly that.

Affordable Business Social Networking Platform Now Available

Thursday, April 9, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

If you're a small business or startup looking to jump onto the social media bandwagon to increase your online presence, you probably have limited budget and resources to do so and have plenty of questions in mind. How do you jump into social media smartly? How deep do you go into social media technology? Is social media even worth it?

There are many reasons for small businesses to adopt a social media advertising strategy:

Increase brand awareness for your company
Drive improved customer relationships and better corporate reputation
Gain a better understanding of emerging issues and trends
Enhance product development and improvement efforts
Generate increased sales and incremental revenue

While businesses have pratically forever recognized that these goals are essential to the success of any company, the advent of social media marketing has made achieving these goals more accessible and potentially less expensive.

Social networking technology has made it easy for people to share their opinions, rate favorite products, research the dirt and communicate easily with others. That's happening for practically every product out there. No matter how big or small your company is, if you have customers, you can bet they're talking about your brand somewhere. So what are you doing to influence that conversation?

You could tap into online social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to build a fan base for your brand and communicate directly with "friends" to glean the data you need to the business goals above. Many companies do, to mixed results, but ultimately that network doesn't belong to you and you have no control over the conversation around your brand. It's Facebook and other mass aggregate social networks that own these assets and even monetize them. You don't get a dime.

So what's the alternative? How about launching your own branded destination where the users are yours? What about being able to offer the mix of social networking features that is appropriate for your community? And what if you could make money via advertising, sponsorships, or other means?

Reality Digital recently introduced an affordable business social networking platform, Harmony, that enables you to quickly build your own online social networking sites and start developing a community around your brand. It's easy to set up a site using preset themes and it includes over 30 configurable social media widgets to customize the site with online video and photo galleries, mobile uploads, blogs, forums, ratings, comments and other popular social networking features. And it includes a host of business administrative features to monitor critical metrics about your community and site traffic for return on investment.

Harmony is a smart choice for you if you want to create your own branded online community for whatever reason:

Fan site for your product or brand
User generated video contest
Interactive customer community for product feedback

It's also priced affordably for businesses who are serious about social media. And while the possibilities are endless, the important thing is to map your ideas back to your business goals (like the ones above) and with a little planning, you'll find social media can be a very lucrative program for your marketing efforts.

Building Real Communities Online

Monday, April 6, 2009 by Chuck Cantrell

Affinity is the name of the game for communities and social networking tools can really help to keep a community focused on shared values. People like to live near people that are like them, this is a social norm. But does this norm extend to online communities as well? My basic observations say yes, as I evaluated my own online communities I found that the people I engage with are very much like my friends and neighbors of the physical world. As a matter of fact, some of them are the very same people.

Facebook is a great example, no matter how vast and diverse the universe of Facebook users is, my micro online community is very much similar to my physical community. Sites like Facebook make building a customized social network that caters to our basic community building needs easy. So the work of building online communities is more than half done by the users. You build the online social networking sites and let the community do the rest. People will find affinity with each other and micro communities will begin to spring up.

So big question, how for can these communities extend, how vast can they become? Can you create a social platform for elections that help to tie entire countries together? Check out these attempts at online political community building, from Google and Yahoo. Google launched Google India Elections Tools to help India's several 100 million voters make a decision about who to support in its upcoming national elections. Now this is community building on the largest scale possible. Honestly Yahoo India is doing a much better job at this with much less attention, (in the interest of full disclosure, I am an Ex-Yahoo.) Check it out and decide for yourself.