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What is Social Networking?
A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency such as interests, hobbies, values, ideas, friendship, trade etc. It represents the relationships and flows between people / organizations which communicate, share or exchange ideas / knowledge and are not necessarily known to each other.
What is Social Networking Sites?
Social networking sites are online communities that allow users to create a web presence, manage their identities, and stay connected to friends and colleagues. It is a medium to build and establish online communities of like-minded people, who share common interests. Social networking sites were created to provide people with an outlet to share information, communicate, express themselves as well as establish professional relationships.
Why people join Social Networking Sites?
Research shows that people join social networking sites because of these reasons -
- 78% to meet people
- 47% for entertainment
- 38% learn something new
- 23% influence others
What People do on Social Networking Sites
Benefits of using Social Networking Sites
- Low Cost and Easy to Use: Reaching large number of people is easy without paying large amount of fee as most of these sites are free and they are very easy to use.
- Easy to create profile: A profile can be created with very little time and effort. For the less Web-savvy individual, most sites provide straightforward instructions and a general template to make page-construction simple.
- Brand building: It is a way to get socialize with people, build rapport with them and ultimately get traffic to the website.
- Word of mouth:This is tremendously powerful to have content go viral, as users don't feel that the information is being pushed at them, but more, it was referred to them by a trusted friend in a trusted network
- Increase Awareness: When someone adds a business profile as a "friend," the profile appears in that person's friends list. This means other people will see, and perhaps visit, the profile; thus increasing awareness about the business.
- Allows for customer feedback: Some sites serve as an outlet for where a company can really explore possibilities of reaching out to the customer and ask for feedback
Top Social Networking Sites
 Twitter
Twitter is micro - blogging service and social network rolled into one. It enable its users to send and read each other's updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of upto 140 characters, displayed on author's page and delivered to other users - known as followers.
Statistics & Facts
- Twitter is the fastest growing member community site for the month of February
- Twitter's largest age demographics is 35 to 49 years old - almost 3 million unique visitors are from this age group
- 62% of the audience access Twitter from work, while only 35% access it from home
- In January 2009, 735,000 unique visitors accessed Twitter via their mobile device
 Myspace
MySpace is a social networking website where members can meet friends, find and listen to music / bands, create personal profiles, join groups, post on blog, plan events, participate in forums, and submit videos, music and photos.
Statistics & Fact
- MySpace has more than 110 million monthly active users around the globe
- 1 in 4 Americans is on MySpace
- On average 300,000 new people sign up to MySpace every day
- Traffic by Region: 66% US, 4% UK, 3.5% Germany, 2.4% Mexico (Alexa)
- 2.5 billion visits per month
- Average Time on Site: 26:00 minutes
- 85% of MySpace users are 18 or older)
- 50 Million mails per day (more than Yahoo, Google or Hotmail)
- 10 Billion friend relationships
- More than 8 Million artists and bands on MySpace Music
- 8 Million images being uploaded per day
- 60,000 new videos being uploaded to MySpace TV each day
 Facebook
Facebook is a social utility that helps people understand the world around them in a better way. Facebook develops technologies that facilitate the spread of information through social networks allowing people to share information online the same way they do in the real world. It is an online tool which people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives with each other.
Statistics & Facts
- More than 250 million active users
- More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
- More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
- The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
- More than 350,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
- There are more than 30 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
 Multiply
Multiply, like any other social networking site offers a platform to create, share and discuss blogs, photos, videos and reviews. It combines the fun of social networking with photo sharing & photo management software, making it an ideal for your most cherished memories.
Statistics & Facts
- Estimated visits received by Multiply - 4,056,507 visits per day
- Multiply.com is a top 500 site that reaches over 2.6 million U.S. monthly people
- The site attracts more Asian audience.
 Yelp
Yelp is a website that allows users to search for and then rave, rate, and critique a business. But Yelp is more than a simple review website - it's also a social networking site where people can make friends, compare favorite businesses, and more. While Yelp originally became well- known as a source of accurate restaurant reviews, it is becoming a haven for reviews on just about any type of consumer oriented company.
Statistics & Facts
- Yelp was founded in 2004 to help people find great local businesses like dentists, hair stylists and mechanics
- As of June 2009, more than 22 million people visited Yelp in the past 30 days
- Yelp was recently featured as one of Business Week's Best of the New Web Editors' Picks.
How to utilize social networking sites for business promotion?
- Create interesting profile:Make sure that the profile you created will be interesting for the readers. Also, you should make it more personalized by adding interesting articles, images, videos and even reviews of your products.
- Discussion groups: Social networking sites offer internet users with a search directory that you can use to locate particular individuals or groups. You can search by categories like location, industry, interests and other unique preferences
- Refined search: Do not create fake profiles on StumbleUpon only to stumble your friend's content because if you are caught, your account can be disabled temporarily or permanently from StumbleUpon.
- Conveys information about the business: Many sites allow you to post bulletins or blogs for friends. This gives businesses a chance to advertise weekly specials, sales, or new products/services. For many, the Web is one of the first places they visit to search for information. Having an online presence helps ensure your business will be one of the first they come across in a search.
- Maintain your blog: Keep posting lively contents, with link to your company website. This will keep people interested and coming
Vital points to consider
- Keep profile updated:Update your profile and spread awareness among people about your product / services from time to time.
- Never over-friend people: You should not send friend request to more than 50 people a day, as this can look like spamming
- Create your own group: Once you have built up a lot of friends, one of the smartest things to do is to create your own group and put some good key words into the title as some sites like Face book search on the group's title, when people search for new groups to join. Keep in mind that people will search for groups, so ensure that the title of your group matches your content
- Contribute to a community whose members mirror your customers : By checking into the comments, forums, and profiles of a community, you can determine member interests, locations, and a rough sense of demographics
- Become a commentator on a well-trafficked site
- Include your name, website URL, tagline, and other contact information in your signature
- Include link to your website in your profile
Addressing the challenges
- Difficult to legitimize:MEven Google has said that social networks are difficult to legitimize because the use case is simply different. Members do not look out for the information the way they do on a search engine, instead they communicate with each other by expressing views.
- Unreliable user data: Different users exhibit different thinking and they may just submit wrong information on their profile page; and the general marketing tip related to focus on targeted audience is tossed out.
- Safety Issues: The usage of third party application widgets and sharing of a lot of information tends to put a member at risk.
- Time Factor: To network in a right manner, time commitment is an important factor. Joining more networking sites means more time availability
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