Social Networking

If you haven’t heard of social networking, this is an indication that you have not powered up your computer in the last couple of years, and you have also not turned on your television. Social networking is all the rage these days.

Social networking occurs at a website where people gather. The users are typically able to create a profile page, add friends to their friends list, comment on their friend’s pages, and send messages to all of their friends. Social networking sites center around interactivity and – well – socialization with other people.

Today, the most frequented social networking site is MySpace at www.myspace.com. Numerous marketers have incorporated the use of MySpace into their marketing plan. However, this particular site is more geared towards the older teenage/lower twenties crowd.

Regardless of this, even if you are a marketer in your 80’s, you can make a site like MySpace work well for you. The objective is to remember the audience, and to design a profile page that targets that crowd. Put hip music on the page, use a layout that appeals to the younger crowd, and just generally keep them in mind in every action that you take on the MySpace website.

Once you’ve created your profile, you start searching and adding friends, and make sure that you join targeted groups as well. Now, you can send out messages to all of your friends through the broadcast feature. You cannot, however blatantly advertise. The objective should be to broadcast something that brings them to your profile page, where you can advertise as much as you want to.

Not all social networking sites are created equally. There are networking sites that cater to specific niches. For instance, LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com caters to business people, for the most part. FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com is a site much like MySpace.

Bebo at http://www.bebo.com is more targeted to high school and college students from around the world. BlackPlanet, at http://www.blackplanet.com is targeted towards African Americans. The list goes on and on. A really interesting social networking site is CouchSurfing at http://www.couchsurfing.com. This social networking site is a place to go to meet quality people that are located in places where you plan to travel – so you can crash on their couch. Talk about a united world!

It doesn’t matter who you are, what your goal is, or what social networking site you participate in. It is just a question of participating for the most part, with the target market that is found at that particular networking site in mind.

Think about how things were done before the Internet existed. Social marketing existed then to, but it was done in a slightly different way. There were seminars to attend and organizations to join. Those who had something to promote made it a point to attend events where they would be able to mix with other attendees before, during, or after the event, for the purpose of handing out business cards or shaking hands.

It’s really the same concept online. Instead of meeting face to face, however, you simply do your meeting and communicating in an online environment. Everyone you find through social settings online are not necessarily in business. The majority, in fact, are socializing online for many other reasons besides promotions.

When signing up for a social networking site, take the time to read everything that is available. There are usually numerous ways to communicate with other users of the site. Read the rules, especially, and make sure that you don’t do anything that will offend other users of the site.

Your communication must be done with finesse. If you were meeting these people in person, you would hand them a business card or brochure – you wouldn’t read it to them. Instead, you would be talking about something totally unrelated while you handed them your sales material.

Use your profile page as your business card/brochure, and then talk about things of interest to your connections on the networking sites. The point is to get them to come and visit your profile page. This is usually done by visiting theirs, and leaving a comment or message inviting them to yours.