Strengths and Weaknesses for Different Social Networking Functions

There are various social networking functional applications. Both of them have its own strengths and weaknesses according to Tony Byrne, the founder of CMS Watch and started with a useful breakdown of the complex social networking.

1. Blogs
   
   They are fast and simple to create, easily findable via RSS, and can promote ongoing conversations (Since you can leave comments for the article). However, they are unorganized, hard to keep up over time and easily spammed.
   
   
2. Microblogs (e.g. Twitter)
   
   They are useful for quick customer support, a bit of marketing, listening to customers and link sharing. But, Twitter is not good for having a discussion.
   
   
3. Wikis
   
   They offer extraordinary power, make it possible for everyone to read, edit and review postings. Also, they facilitate bottom-up communications. However, they are hard to organize, offer limited display options, and may require some training to maximize their value.
   
   
4. Discussion forums
   
   They remain popular and create powerful WOM. Also, they are perfect for many to many communications. But, as forums are a great solution for Q&A sessions, they are not well-suited for multiple people trying to edit the same text.
   
   
5. Public Networks (e.g. Facebook)
   
   It can be used for marketing, recruitment, prospects and brand enhancement. But, you do not own the network or the content.

There is no best choice, but, we have to find the most suitable application according to objective, budget (e.g. training to master the tool) and market. Also, we have to know it is limited to control what is said on social network. It is important to use business intelligence to analyze what is being talked about the company continuously.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/05/social-networking-interop-entrepreneurs-technology-bmighty.html