So Many Social Networks, So Little Time…or How To Not Waste Time Socializing In The Wrong PlacesWritten By Marcelo Lewin
Picking the right social network to look for qualified leads should be an essential piece of your eMarketing strategy even before you start thinking of creating an account.
There are many social networks out there and each of them bring their own unique plusses and negatives to the table. There are also many social networks that are focused on specific topics instead of being a general social network like Facebook. You might want to look into those as well, depending on the goal of social networking strategy.
Also, keep in mind that creating valuable relationships in social networks is a very time consuming activity. Many think that because creating a social network account is free there is no cost associated with getting leads through those networks. That assumption can’t be further from the truth, unless of course, you don’t value your time.
Relationships online are created by following conversations, listening in and learning what people like, dislike and what their needs are. Second, you need to participate in conversations and add valuable information to the converstion. Finally, after you have gained their trust, can you then offer your services and/or products (and event then, not in the traditional “in your face” marketing). Social networking takes on a “soft marketing” approach where it’s really value added and not a hard sell.
Below, you will find a list of the social networks we belong to, what they are and why we picked them. Some may work for you, others may not.
 Twitter
If you have a limited amount of time to place your company on a social network, Twitter should be the one you use that time on. It’s the simplest to create an account in and the easiest to maintain. You can easily update your status through it’s interface on Twitter.com, or you can use a growing list of applications, such as TweetDeck to do much more. You are limited to 140 characters to update your status, which is a great way to learn to only say what is meaningful and useful to others. Following conversations is very easy and creating new ones even easier. A must social network for all companies.
Follow @NewMediaDude or @MacTipsDude.
 Facebook
Based on Facebook’s stats, there are over 250 million active users on Facebook, with 120 million of them login in each day and with each user having an average of 120 friends. So do you think your prospective customer is on Facebook? You bet! There are various ways to market on Facebook including creating a user account, creating a business account, creating a business page, creating events and creating causes. Although creating an account on Facebook is simple, maintaining it is not. It does require that you put aside some weekly time to engage with your friends, seek new friends, start conversations, follow conversations, create pages, etc. But is it worth the time? If done right, your ROI will be great!
Become a fan of CNMS Fan Page or CNMS TV Fan Page.
 YouTube
If you produce any kind of video, you should publish them on YouTube. YouTube is the place to reach out to a large audience of video hungry people. From customer service videos, to how-to’s, to promos, to music videos, your videos should be there. You start out by creating an account, setting up your channel and then selecting the type of user you are (youtuber, director, musician, comedian, guru or reporter). You engage with other users by commenting on their videos and subscribing to their channels. You can look for and follow friends. YouTube is a great place for people to find your media!
Friend or subscribe to New Media Webinars or The Digital Scene.
 LinkedIn
LinkedIn claims they have over 40 millions active professionals in their social network. They are one of the oldest networks which, at first, catered mainly to professionals in various industries. This is a great social network to be at if you are trying to establish yourself as a professional and want to make contacts in your industry. However, as a company, you can also create “groups” of defined topics which people can join and start engaging with you. Through these groups, you can market your company services and/or products.
Get connected with Marcelo Lewin.
 Flickr
Flickr, owned by Yahoo, is the social network for sharing photographs. From a business perspective, if you attend or create seminars and events, make sure you photograph them and upload them to Flickr. You can add various meta data to each photograph (e.g. Name, title, tags, description, etc.) to identify and describe each photograph. Why is this important? Let’s say you are a company that sells hunting equipment. You attended a hunting expo. You shot some photographs and uploaded them to Flickr. When people search for “hunting” (or any other word related to hunting), your photographs will come up along with your profile, which has a link to your site. You’re taking the photographs already right? Just share them on Flickr!
Follow the photo stream of New Media Dude.
 Meetup
If you are looking for “bird of a feather” type of events, then Meetup is the place to be at. You can search for topics you are most interested in and “join” these meet-ups and physically meet at a specified location. As a company, you can use Meetup.com to either create a meet-up about a topic you are most interested in or to look for other meet ups that you can join to network or, if you like to present, to give a presentation about your service and/or product.
Follow Marcelo Lewin’s meetups.
 ScreenJelly
What Twitter does for micro-blogging and 12seconds does for video blogging, ScreenJelly does for screen sharing. You can easily create a “screen capture video” to share with the world through Twitter or email. If a customer or potential client asks you a “how do you do this” question, you can easily create a short “screen jelly” showing them exactly how to do what they have asked you. Once you’ve completed the screen jelly, you can share it back to them via Twitter or email. It’s a fantastic service.
Follow the ScreenJelly of New Media Dude.
 FriendFeed
Recently acquired by Facebook, Friendfeed allows users to add all of their updates from social media websites, social networks, blogs, social bookmark sites and micro blogging services. You can even add your own blog RSS feed to it. By combining all of your sources into one feed, your users can follow you using Friendfeed and get all the updates about you from your entire Social Network universe. You can also subscribe to other user’s feeds and comment on those feeds. You can even create “rooms” about specific topics and invite users interested in those topics to join your “room”.
Subscribe to New Media Dude’s Feed.
 12Seconds
Think Twitter, but with video. That’s right. 12Seconds allows you to create 12 second videos to post on their site. Just like Twitter limits you to 140 characters, 12Seconds limits you to only 12 seconds of video posting. Why use 12seconds? Share your latest tips and tricks about your company’s product and/or service. Use it as customer service. Use it to show your expertise. But most of all, just use it! It’s easy and no special installation is required.
Follow New Media Dude’s 12Seconds of his life.
 Howcast
If your company creates how-to videos about your products or services (or about someone else’s products and services), then you want to upload them to Howcast. Howcast allows you to share your videos to a large audience that is hungry for how-to videos. They even have an Emerging Filmmakers Program, which allows you to create specific how-to videos they are looking for and you may even get paid for them. Great way to monetize your how-to videos.
Friend New Media Dude.
I hope this article has been helpful to you. Remember to pick wisely before you jump in and start spending time creating relationships in the wrong places, or worst of all, with the wrong people.
Tags: Social Networks
Posted in Social Networking - 3 Comments »
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Great article. Brief, concise and enlightening. Thanks for sharing your expertise. A bit curious as to why myspace and ning are not in the mix…
To me MySpace is great if you are targeting teen agers or 40+ year old men posing as teen agers. For most businesses, MySpace is not the place where they will find their leads. Ning, on the other hand, is great. Just didn’t have enough time to cover all the cool networks out there.
Ning has a lot of powerful SN tools and a growing community of SN Web sites that are easy to access through the ning membership. But their interface is already getting dated, and some functions are clunky and don’t work at all. For instance I can’t get the new Status bar app to update from my twitter RSS feed. They’ll need to step up development activities to survive.
Looking forward to learning more about all of this with your Webinars.