Social Media Top Features

I just starte with the social networking sites. I agree, that they are here to stay and that they represent a great opportunity. The draw back of a lot of the sites is that you get "junked in" with a lot of irrelevant postings. Facebook allows you to build groups so that you can target certain people for certain posts. I think this is something other sites should implement as well.

I think there are still a lot of road-bumps and challenges in truly extracting adequate brand value from social networking sites. I think we still haven't really cracked the code there. I believe the value is surely present.....we just haven't fully extracted it yet.

Having said that, I think the biggest potential for building brand value through SN is the notion that companies can now have a human face and personality associated with them. Companies that allow their bloggers and twitter point-people, for example, to be themselves and resist the temptation to make them human press releases, will yield the most benefit from this emerging medium. People want to deal with people...not "spokespersons" or "PR departments". In my view, the companies that transparently put a human face and personality in front of their brand will be the ultimate winners and will truly leverage the untapped potential of social networking.

As predicted, the backlash against social media branding has already started to happen. See this new article from Website Magazine:

"In a recent survey by marketing firm Edelman, it was revealed that consumers are losing trust in each other, when it comes to providing credible information about companies. In fact, confidence dropped by nearly half, since 2008. In 2008, 45 percent said that friends and peers are credible sources of information about companies. In 2010, that number fell to 25 percent. Trust has evaporated in other categories, too. TV news dropped more than 20 percent, and newspapers dropped about 20 percent. The reason this is significant to Web professionals is that many businesses have put faith in social media to help them market their brands - a place that, in the traditional view, relies on peer-to-peer branding. We've seen evidence of many businesses shifting significant portions of their marketing budgets to social media based on presumptions of the value of social sharing. Many will surely see this as a significant cloud over their social marketing initiatives."

To read the rest of the article:
http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2010/02/23/peer-to...

Al Shultz
http://www.alshultz.com/

I just starte with the social networking sites. I agree, that they are here to stay and that they represent a great opportunity.

I definitely agree they are here to stay. The challenge is in trying to choose the most relevant and helpful sites for your particular situation and niche. I agree with Thilo about the "irrelevant" ones getting thrown into the mix.

Although we at Xorcom have been using a few social networks for more than a year, we have recently consolidated our presence onto what is called a 'social media press kit' (see http://www.xorcom.com/smpk). We use a graphic in our e-mail signature that points to this page, and anyone wanting to learn more about our company or participate in any of our existing networks can do so from there.
I think it's a great way for potential partners, customers, investors and employees to find out about your business quickly.

Hi, What do you think about – KeyPeople.biz ?