Early adapters of social media are already looking for what's next. They have their Facebook and Twitter profiles and want to know how they can further build on these relationships.
The answer is custom branded communities. When you build your social program on Facebook or Twitter you really are on someone else's platform. You're required to follow their rules and if they make changes to set up or design then your site needs to comply.
Branded communities are similar to websites in the look and layout.
Branded Community advantages:
1. You have a custom URL which makes it easy to share with your audience.
2. You get detailed analytics on who is visiting your site and how they found you.
3. You have the ability to data capture contact information.
4. Branded communities let you determine the advertising that appears. You can have no ads or you can use ad revenue to cover the costs.
5. Communities allow you to form groups on the site based on specific interests or locations so you can engage with your members.
Your custom community lets you interact with your members as you would on Facebook and Twitter. But instead of going to different sites all the things you do on those sites you do here. You can also do videos as you would on YouTube and it can host your blogs.
Don't think you have to close your other sites, instead you can still interact with members who choose to use those sites but you can also use your Facebook and Twitter as traffic drivers to direct traffic to your custom community.
If you already have your social communities and want to know what is next, a branded community can be your answer.
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