COMMENTS
Great post. While all of these social networks have their value, there is going to be diminishing value of return for the user because of the following:
1) Where is the product differentiation? Why do I need more than say 3-5?
2) To make matters worse, many of these sites do not have a common sign-on support such as Open ID. This means a user has to remember multiple user names and passwords.
3) Posting content on these sites requires time and effort. Applications such as Switchabit really help, but even they only support a small number of social networking sites.
Eventually, users are going to use 3-5 of these sites and this industry will see consolidation like any other industry has and many of them will just die.
How are all of these sites intend to make money - ads? Premium services? If I am an advertiser, do I really want to have to manage relationships with a zillion social networking sites? If I am a user how many of these premium services do I really need?
Well written, Bernie. I like your analogy. In the real world, each person leaves different tracks and interacts with different people as they make decisions about who to spend their time with.
These sites are just an extension of that. For a business owner and a marketer, I think it's critical to understand which interactions and groups provide an ROI on time spent. And that's what should govern how many sites and how frequently a specific site is used.
But, your point about SEO is important. For SEO, it helps to be a bit promiscuous with your SNS usage - using as many as possible. In terms of making an impact, though, I think it's important to make deep connections with people on these sites in order to get the full value out of these sites. After all, many of these sites do not pass SEO credit directly.
Linkedin was included into the About.com Top 10 employment site list...linkedin is still the only social network on the list though.....the newest 3 on the list are-
www.linkedin.com (professional networking)
www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)
www.realmatch.com (matches you to the perfect job)
Complete top 10 job site list here:
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/joblistings/tp/jobbanks.htm
I agree if the lines are being crossed...let them. I belong to all the social networking arenas that you have listed above and many more.
I have noticed that I receive hits to my site even when I don't frequent the sites that often. The truth of the matter is most of these networking sites have a high page rank therefore generating quality backlinks to your website.
You also cannot underestimate the power that each of these social systems have on their own. If you exclude any of the "not so popular" venues, then you may very well be missing an entire genre of potential leads.
Demographics and social media go hand and hand. Where baby boomers may hang out will most likely differ from where the teens are, yet each are huge markets in and of themselves. To exclude one social media to only list with the top 3-5 would really be, overall, hurting your chances to network on a larger scale and reach as many potentials as possible.
Why limit yourself? If you are going to do social marketing, then take the time to do it right and learn that there are more medias that will have no interest to you personally, but have a tremendous interest to your users. That's where you need to be!
Dianna, I don't mean to underestimate the power of these social networks, but too much of anything is nothing but excess.
Just like how a company needs to figure out what market segment to target and what products to build, I think the companies need to approach social media the same way. What demographic segment is your target and where do they hang out - where are the conversations happening that you want to join so that you can let them know that you exist.
If the answer is the target audience are on all of these sites, then Yes, you need to have a presence on all of these sites. But if 90% of these websites don't have the audience that I am targeting, it is a wasted effort - as well focus on the those sites where I can get better traction.
After all, there will be more social media sites that will prop up - but if one does not approach these without the right strategy based on the market you are trying to serve, I am not sure it will create the results one will be looking for.
You are absolutely right Gopal. You have to find the correct strategy based on the market you serve, but if you do not give a new "out of the box" thinking strategy a try, you may very well find an overlooked opportunity embraced by your competitors.
Simply stated is that often times, we are more pleasantly surprised at how much opportunity we find in new market segments when we look "under the rocks" and take a chance, instead of waiting for our competitors to do it for us and take our market share.
Ultimately, these conversations are happening not only on social sites, but are taken back into emails and shared with friends and family with links back to websites for direct traffic. Your social media strategy immediately impacts your organic SEO rankings and that is the ultimate market segment to target.
Great article, i am getting the benefit already. It rocks!
I think it's great to be on a lot of social networks which serve as outposts but really focus on a couple. For example, I have accounts set up on several different sites. Many of them I only check in once per week or one might fall into my daily list for a few days then I switch. But, there are a core few like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn which I visit every day. As with anything, there are a select few which will rise to the top and the rest will either close or get bought out.
I was wondering, if there's a way to create profile on one website and then use some webservices or a software / portal to extract or push the basic profile onto another website? But the article is very interesting
Justin - Thanks for the great comment. I like the analogy of "outposts" and how you check them.
Dianna - thanks for the engaging discussion
Gopal - Thanks for the kind words. I wish I could take credit for the term "outposts" but I definitely can't. This idea has been written about by both Darren Rowse and Chris Brogan a couple of times. Here is a great post from Darren which summarizes it and links to some of the other posts: http://snipurl.com/4ljl9
My inspiration on this topic stems from a podcast from Stanford University on "web 3.0." In 3.0 we'll be able to maintain one profile that travels with us to the various "outposts" where we hang out on the web. Clearly, we're not there yet, though FriendFeed is an attempt to manage our various feeds. In the meantime, the journey is a blast. Sounds like you'all agree.
My inspiration on this topic stems from a podcast from Stanford University on "web 3.0." In 3.0 we'll be able to maintain one profile that travels with us to the various "outposts" where we hang out on the web. Clearly, we're not there yet, though FriendFeed is an attempt to manage our various feeds. In the meantime, the journey is a blast. Sounds like you'all agree.
As a society, we have become more and more isolated in the physical world...our social networks become "our neighborhoods, our clubs, our organizations, and our support systems". They become a very integral part of who we are, how we connect with others; and, how we express our place in the world.