Social-networking

SEnuke: Ready for action

With therefore much curiosity about how social networks work, one begins to wonder if there is marketing potential within these social networks?

I've been watching social media for a while now. The truth is I'm a part of various social-networking sites including http://www.myspace.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com only...

There has been a virtual explosion of social networking sites in the past couple of years. Even the major people like Google, Yahoo and MSN are becoming into it.

With therefore much curiosity about how social networks work, one begins to wonder when there is advertising potential within these social networks?

I have been seeing social media for some time now. Actually I am an associate of various social networking websites including https://www.linkedin.com and http://www.myspace.com/ merely to name two.

I joined partly because I wanted to see what these were, but more importantly to see on SEM what influence social media would have in the coming years.

I have been a part of various services for some time and the reach these sites have is incredible.

As an example, from my LinkedIn network of eight people I've an expanded network of over 12,600 people.

Imagine that - I am just a click or two away from close to 13,000 others who share my similar interests ranging from what I like to watch o-n TV to work I could give for them.

Through their connections and my connections, I'm attached to people including the American Cancer Society, to Sun Microsystems to the University of Texas to Google.

But what marketing possibilities are there for Social Networking?

Well, let's take a look at MySpace.

MySpace is one of the top sites on line today. It racked up 9.4 billion page-views in August 2005 (significantly more than Google) and new customers are signing up at-a mind-boggling rate of 3.5 million per month.

MySpace is typical of where todays 18-30 year-old would go to manage their electronic life. I-t allows users to publish pictures of themselves and their friends, create a weblog, list their favorite groups, watch and share videos, suggest things you can do and lists a couple of people they consider friends. It's on this 'Friends List' where most of the possibilities lay.

All thirty million plus consumers of MySpace have a friends site that lists people that person views their friend. This is a list of individuals who they are interested in speaking with and about, along with hearing from on an everyday basis. They can send you messages, discuss your pictures, study your blogs, as well as leave messages that you can then tell others after you add somebody as your friend. This really is the opportunity for immediate feedback about you.

The capability to include friends to your page is key for advertising to MySpace customers. In accordance with Courtney Holt, head of new media and strategic advertising at Interscope Records, 'This technology is growing up with out ever seen developed media. 'They do not think in terms of the recording, and they don't think in terms of the TV schedule. They think with regards to TiVo, P2P, AOL, and obviously MySpace.

You can observe how this might develop.

Let us say you develop a MySpace account to speak about your service or product. You weblog about this and seek out your interests that may be shared by others.

After this you invite them to be your friend. Learn supplementary resources on this related encyclopedia by visiting http://deckbiz.com/news/mike-marko-publishes-post-about-marketing-through-linkedin/0169746/. Once they develop into a friend you begin your 'comfortable market' begging your product in their mind.

As they grow to appreciate it, they start blogging and sharing it. Soon thousands or even thousand of people are talking about you and your product or service.

Do not think this can work?

I'd like to give some examples to you. There are lots of groups who've gotten their start MySpace. By simply hosting some of their music on line and blogging about them-selves they created a following. Soon they'd document deals and contracts lined up.

Of course to use services like MySpace you need to get some thing this marketplace needs. If you don't then you probably should not put an excessive amount of effort in to MySpace.

But that does not mean other social network opportunities ought to be ignored. As I mentioned above, Linked-in is more of an expert introduction service. If your service or product meets here then by all means examine it more.

And there are others also. Companies including Yahoo!s MyWeb, Flickr, http://del.icio.us and more. To read additional information, please consider checking out: Mike Marko Publishes Post about Marketing through Linkedin.

So if you have ever wondered what other online options might be around, consider social-networking. It may be another great internet marketing channel..