Today I was asked if every business uses social networking how will we find any businesses and will there still be any value? This got me thinking….oh no! If every business and nonprofit had a blog, a Facebook page, LinkedIn business profile and so many other others things out there would there be even more junk out on the Internet.
Please forgive me in advance for my indecisiveness. Since I don’t have an answer I am going to give a few plausible answers and try to come to a conclusion.
Because people are pulling information and it is not being pushed on them there cannot be too much information. People will find the information they want and as Internet technology evolves so will search. In the short time it may seem like there is too much, however, over time developers will make this work. Look at cable TV and you will see the same problem and solutions are being developed to manage it.
Since there is so much content people will give up and stop looking for commercial content. Just like we have used TiVo to skip past TV commercials we will find ways to skip Internet commercial information. I don’t think this is viable because so much of the information that users want is commercial in nature.
Facebook and other servers won’t be free forever. Even a low cost of entry will take away people who are not serious about making their business social.
Just putting a page on Facebook and starting a blog is not enough. Businesses will need to make their organization social and to do this right the investment in time is greater than the uncommitted will be willing to do.
New and creative campaigns and uses of social tools will make the right places float to the top of the pile. Better search and better content will make things worth seeing available. Also, since part of the power of social networking is the ability to share things of value. Buttons like the Facebook Like button and tools like Digg will clarify what has value to users like you.
The truth is that some hybrid of these answers will be the end result of social networking. Start thinking about what it means to make your business social (watch for the upcoming book Connect and Contribute: Creating a Social Business) and start paying for attention.
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1 comment:
Steve,
A few observations and opinions:
1. SEO and SNO will play a big role in the effectiveness of any SM strategy.
2. As with any strategy, goals for SM in business must be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound).
3. Within that framework, goals and strategies will be at least a little different for virtually every business.
4. As I'm fond of saying, if you have a business with customers, you're a SM participant whether you like it or not.
Thanks for the great insight, as always.
Mike Hanbery
http://www.hanbery.com/
http://mikehanbery.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/mikehanbery
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