Have you been wondering how you might engage in social networks for your business?Very often I am asked but how might social networks be relevant to a specific audience.
When I talk through social media platforms, I cover what I call focused or targeted social networks - where the social network is specifically relevant to a specific audience, just as you might think about joining an offline network or group for your professional association or hobby e.g. The Institute of Management Consultants and Advisors or Network Ireland for women in business in Ireland.
Let's take a look at a few specific online networks that have been established recently:
- Saga Zone has been established by Saga the organisation who supports people in the UK over 50 with products from vacations to financial services has created their own social network. They offer their members the opportunity to create your own personal profile page and share your interests in our online forums; write your own web diary, or blog. They also plan to offer members the opportunity to create their own photo gallery and engage in live instant chats
- Club Penguin is an online community for children aged 6-14 brought to us by the Disney Corporation. Club Penguin is a virtual world where children can play games and connect with each other. There is a free and a paid membership option - the site comments that instead of financing their operations Club Penguin relies solely on paid memberships. The copy on the site says "By remaining ad-free, we can provide our users a safe haven from marketing."
- Caboodle is a social networking community about Budapest and Hungary, including general interest news and original feature stories, comprehensive event listings - it's aimed at foreign nationals living and working in Hungary and is written in the English Language
- SkiSpace is a new social networking and information site just for skiers, snowboarders and winter sports hounds. It's co-founder is world champion skier Bode Miller. Members can share photos and videos, help you plan your snow adventures, find the best travel deals in fact everything it provides just about everything for the Ski enthusiast. Lanuched in December 2007, it had 10,000 members in the first month according to a review in Business Week.
In fact the Telegraph reported this week that the BBC is now planning to set up a social networking site for the 6-13 year old age group. The BBC site, which is costing £200,000 to develop, will launch in April piloted among 1,000 children. The BBC state that the site is designed to encourage discussion of the Corporation's shows and will help raise awareness among youngsters about the risks of using the internet.
So what does this mean for you in terms of connecting to your clients and potential clients or customers through social networking?
Well even if you have no plan to develop your own social networking site or plan to advertise online through social netowrking sites is the fact that it's important to keep tabs on where your potential clients are congregating online. Even by "listening to the conversation", you could learn alot about what their current challenges are and what they are concerned about which can help you in fine turning your product, service or marketing copy.
What I can tell you with certainty is that increasingly your competition is investigating and learning more about social media marketing - I know that for a fact from the number of enquiries I have had already in the last month about running educational programmes and mentoring programmes in the field of social media marketing in Ireland.
So how can you start to build awareness and your knowledge in the field of social networking? Well here are some terrific resources and many of them are available at no cost:
- Don't forget to join me on Monday 28 January 2008 when I will be in conversation with Jason Alba, author of "I'm on LinkedIn now what???" which you can register to attend here for just the cost of your phone call
- Join me for the preview session for the forthcoming Social Media Telesummit on the 6 February 2008 at 1pm ET/6pm Dublin and London where host of the summit, Leesa Barnes, will be in conversation with some of the worlds experts in the field of social media marketing including Paul Colligan, Darren Bearfoot and Sherman Hu. Again it's free to register for - you will see a registration box half way down the page - all you need is a phone line to join us.
Tags: social media marketing, social networking, Jason Alba, Leesa Barnes, Darren Bearfoot, Paul Colligan, Sherman Hu, Caboodle, Club Penguin, Saga Zone, SkiSpace, Social Media Telesummit
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