Importance for Making Use of Social Networking Sites in Marketplace

Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Hi5 exploded onto the internet, effectively changing the way that users interact online in a social environment.

Among the social networking sites worldwide, the two most popular are Facebook and MySpace. According to numbers from ComScore[1], May 2008, Facebook has 123.9 million users worldwide, and MySpace has 114.6 million.

Nowadays, many and many people in different groups communicate with each others through social networking sites. A study of Facebook users by MarketingHub.info found that:

1. 84% of members are between the ages of 14 and 26
2. 55% of members are female and 45% are male
3. 47% of members are currently studying at a high school or college level

Social networks connect people at low cost and benefit eCommerce platforms. Marketers should learn more about this trend and make use of social networks for reaching their target customers because it is a customer relationship management instrument for companies selling products and services, or as a wide-reaching advertising tool.


[1] ComScore
A global source of digital market intelligence and the most preferred measurement service.


Source: http://www.socialwise.com/social-networks.html
http://www.comscore.com/

Social Networking Websites

Social networking is becoming more and more popular over the world, especially among the teenager group. They share photos, videos, experiences and opinions with their friends and meet people from different places. Social networking has really changed the traditional communication ways. We just sit in front of computer, and then we can meet friends with common interest.

Generally, social networking websites are divided into three categories. Here is some examples:


1. Personal contact management websites – provide opportunities for connecting existing friend and family contacts, also the most popular.

MySpace



Facebook



Friendster




2. Business networking websites - assist you in connecting with business contacts, new and old alike.

LinkedIn



XING




3. Cultural trends networking websites - can be utilized in understanding the current trends and fashions.

Twitter



Buzznet



To know more social networking websites, you can visit
http://www.matthuggins.com/a-definitive-list-of-social-networking-websites-to-help-you-succeed/

7 Rules for Social Networking Marketing Effectiveness

Social networking is rapidly becoming the most preferred Web 2.0 marketing tool. If you are engaged in selling your products or services online, there is plenty you can do with social networking sites to promote your business. However, the possibilities are accompanied by inevitable pitfalls. Here are a few things to keep in mind in order to raise your effectiveness when using social networking sites.

1. Time spending, you need to post a lot of infomation and activities, it's a daily work to maintain a social networking web site

2. Build a specific topic, to set target

3. Completed contraction of social networking site

4. Supportors, friends to support your social marketing

5. Post effective and approiate contents

6. test the social market, do research and get opinions from the market, to meet people who you want to

7. place your social marketing campaign on the website, to get public attention, keep tracking to the social network site

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-qmF7vgBZ8

Social networking in youtube~

In youtube, simply typing "social networking", you can search many information about social networking, many videos with simple explanation are uploaded in web, so you can learn it anytime, it's very user friendly~~~




This is the web of brief explanation of social networking, you can get a background idea of what "social networking" is!!

This video comes in an "unbranded" presentation quality" version that can be licensed for use in workplace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc







Here is talking about the benefit of social networking. Online social networking offers the internet users a mean of connecting and sharing information with other people and groups who share common interests and goals.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_8cv1VcT-I

Using social networking, there is tones of chance to do business, it seems in web3.0, social networking sites will probably be dominated. It is very powerful and become a major channel to launch new business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef98Q623pn8

Since the social networking becoming more popular, we should be aware of the security in net, we need to keep an eye on the safer social networking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPgBss6OHcA&NR=1

More about Social Network

Dear mates,

I've got the book on hand, and I found some more defination and related articles about out topic "social network". Here I quoted part of them for your reference.

Page 11 - "Social Network is a site that facilitates peer-tp-peer communication within a group or between individuals through providing facilities to develop user-generated content (UGC) and to exchange messages and comments between different users."

Page 23 - "These sites or parts of sites focus on enabling cimmunity interactions between different consumers (C2C model). Typical.......Well-known examples include Bebo, Facebook, MySpace and Linked-In. Other ........B2B social networks to keep business professionals in contact include Linked-in and Plaxo although some are turning to Facebook for this function."

What do you think if we use Facebook to be one of the example for the study? Let's have more discussion on this first.

On page 86, it shows that research has be done by Microsoft about function of social network. The results is shown as follow for your reference also:

"59% - to keep in touch with friends and family
57% - I like looking at other people's spaces
47% - I want to meet people with similar interests
46% - to express my opinions and views on topics
20% - it is a good way to date
17% - using it for a specific reasion, eg wedding, job networking"

There is a table showing the Variations in number of connections in a sample. I'll upload the table once scanned.