Trend of Online Marketing - Social Networking Still #1

Companies are increasing their social network activities in 2009 and even more in the future. The table below shows the change in online marketing spending in 2009 for US small businesses:


25% of US small businesses would like to increase budget on social networking in 2009, the highest percentage than other online marketing ways. Meanwhile, 33% would keep spending on social networking. And 37% of small businesses do not use social networking, but that is a smaller percentage than other media, such as email, search engine, mobile and even company website.

How social networking helps your business? Social networking can be an efficient platform to use in the spread of the message, company and products. It is also a great tool for getting visitors and page views to your site. More and more people will share the message, and then create word-of-mouth (WOM).

To understand how the social network marketing is important and how it is so powerful, that’s why so many companies create their own social networks built around their niche topics.

Source: http://mashable.com/2009/01/12/social-networking-online-marketing/

Survey on Commercial Social Networking

Between February 20 and April 15, 2009, 980 nonprofit professionals responded to a survey abouttheir organization’s use of online social networks. The survey is sponsored by NTEN, CommonKnowledge and ThePort. Particpants were posed to survey about their use of commercial social networks such as Facebook, MySpace,LinkedIn, and others.


Survey Results
Commercial Social NetworksPopularity of Commercial Social NetworksBy a large margin, Facebook is the most popular of the commercial social networks with 74.0% of respondentsindicating that their organization has a presence there. YouTube and Twitter are a distantsecond and third with 46.5% and 43.2%, respectively, of nonprofit survey respondents indicating theymaintain a presence in these channels. Linked In was fourth with 32.9% , and MySpace fifth with26.1% of respondents.

Within individual vertical segments, professional associations were more likely to use LinkedInthan Facebook for their commercial social network efforts—51.7% of associations cited LinkedInas their commercial social network platform versus 32.8% of survey respondents across allverticals. Likewise, just 55.2% of associations reported using Facebook versus an average of74.1% across all verticals.

Staff Time and External Resources Dedicated to Commercial Social NetworksFully four-fifths (80.8%) of survey respondents committed at least one-quarter of a full-time staffmember to maintaining—marketing, managing and cultivating—their commercial social networkpresence over the last 12 months. Roughly two thirds (64.5%) of survey respondents dedicated onequarterto one-half of a full-time resource, and 16.3% committed three-quarters or more staff to theircommercial social networks.

Looking ahead, over half (55.0%) of survey respondents indicate they will increase staffing over thenext 12 months, 39.5%) say staffing will stay the same, and just 1 in 20 (5.6%) will decrease staffing.

Four out of ten (40.6%) survey respondents had some budget over the last 12 months for externalresources dedicated to helping with their commercial social network work, but just 8.3% set aside$10,000 or more, with only 1.4% allotting more than $100,000 to external resources to help withcommercial social network efforts.

About one-quarter (24.1%) of survey respondents indicate they will increase funding for external resourcesdedicated to helping with commercial social network efforts in the coming 12 months, whilethe majority (68.0%) say they will keep external resourcing budgets the same. 7.9% of survey respondentswill decrease their social network external resource budgets for the coming year.

From the survey, we learned that commercial social networks, especially Facebook, are popular, but average community sizes remain small, and presence is relatively short. Responding nonprofits are allocating small but real resources, staff and budget to their social networks. Survey respondents prefer traditional marketing channels to promote their social networks but are experimenting with new social media channels. For now, there is very little real revenue generated on these communities via fundraising and advertising. A minority of nonprofit survey respondents, about one third, have built and manage their own house social networks, using software from a wide variety of social network software vendors, with no clear leader among these vendors. The members of house social networks are as yet, with just a few exceptions, still relatively small as well.

Source: http://www.nonprofitsocialnetworksurvey.com/

Social Networking - Friendster and Facebook

A Web site that provides a virtual community for people interested in a particular subject or just to "hang out" together. Members create their own online "profile" with biographical data, pictures, likes, dislikes and any other information they choose to post. They communicate with each other by voice, chat, instant message, videoconference and blogs, and the service typically provides a way for members to contact friends of other members.

Sites may also serve as a vehicle for meeting in person. The "social networking site" is the 21st century "virtual community," a group of people who use the Internet to communicate with each other about anything and everything. One can find dating sites, friendship sites, sites with a business purpose and hybrids that offer a combination of these. Globally, hundreds of millions of people have joined one or more social networking sites.

In the Beginning of Social Networking

Introduced in 2002, Friendster http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http://www.friendster.com) was the first social site, followed by MySpace http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http://www.myspace.com) a year later. Started by two friends, MySpace became extremely popular, and its parent company, Intermix, was acquired by News Corporation for $580 million two years after MySpace was launched.

Facebook http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http://www.facebook.com) came out in 2004 initially targeting college students, but later welcoming everyone (see Facebook). Following Facebook were TagWorld http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http://www.tagworld.com) and Tagged http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http://www.tagged.com). TagWorld introduced tools for creating more personalized Web pages, and Tagged introduced the concept of building tag teams for teens with like interests.
Social networking sites compete for attention much like the first Web portals when the Internet exploded onto the scene in the mid-1990s. Variations are emerging all the time.

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/social-networking-site

What Social Network Is the Right One for You?

The first question you must ask yourself in order to pick out the right social network is: What do you want out of a social network? Are you looking into social networks for business reasons? If so, a large general interest social network like MySpace or Facebook would be a good advertising face, while a business-oriented social network like Linkedin would be best for making good contacts.

Perhaps you are passionate about music. Last.fm combines the idea of a personalized radio station with social networking allowing you to create your own playlist, suggests music based on your preferences, and allows you to listen to your friends radio stations as well.

If you are passionate about a particular subject, a niche social network with a specific theme can be a terrific place to start. Because it matches your interest, you will be more likely to get involved in the community, and getting involved is what social networking is really all about.

Unfortunately, while there are plenty of social networks that cater to different interest, there isn't a social network for each and every interest. But, not to worry. Most social networks contain user-created groups that help people with similar interest find each other.

Or, perhaps you just want to meet a wide variety of people and not just those interested in movies or books or music. A general interest social network like MySpace, Facebook, or Hi5 might be right up your ally.

It seems that social networking is a trend in our society no matter for the personal use or in business. Therefore, marketer should pay more attention for creating a suitable social networking in order to attract your customer to your company or product. But the most important thing is you should know what's your customer needs.

Source: http://webtrends.about.com/od/socialnetworking/a/socialnetwork_h.htm