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Build a Social Network Empire
Look, I don’t really think that the mySpaces and Facebooks of the world are that important for the typical small business as they stand today. There may be very practical business reasons for some to actually use these and other, what are called social networks, for business gain, but most people that have jumped on the social network bandwagon have found themselves left with a “is this all there is” kind of feeling.
To those, I say this, the value of the current public social networks for business folks is not what you can get out of them for gain today, but what you can learn by using them for practical gain tomorrow. That’s why SpacebookedIn makes sense for you now.
The Facebooks of the world are busy teaching millions and millions of business folks how social networks work, how social networking works, how shared applications can be viral and ever-present. The real payoff in my opinion is that the wave to come after the Facebook bubble bursts is the “personalized business network.” Once everyone of your customers and prospects knows how to use what are easily replicatable social networking tools, like building profiles, sharing video and connecting based on mutual interests, your job of building your own social business network around your own very specific community of niche will get a whole lot easier.
2008 will be the year of the personalized social business network. So, if you’ve decided to take a pass on the whole social networking trend, I would suggest that you use this handy list to start learning to ride this bike with the training wheels on.
Ten ways to get started with Social Networking
1) Read 10 blogs – sign-up for a Bloglines account and search for and subscribe to 10 blogs about social networking – you can return daily to your page on Bloglines to find and read all the new content on your 10. Of course you can add blogs about your industry and interests here too.
2) Comment on 10 blogs – posting relevant comments to blogs you read is a very simple form of social networking. It’s also a good way to get some extra visitors your site or blog.
3) Join Facebook – Join and create a profile. Find and friend some of your existing contacts using tools on Facebook. You’ll be surprised how many people you already know have Facebook accounts. Facebook has some real value for you because of the rich set of tools and large amount of active users. This is a great place to experiment with how people interact in social networks. Once you get your feet wet you may also find that Facebook is a great way to connect with business contacts you may never bump into otherwise.
4) Create a mySpace page – this service is really embraced primarily by musicians and the younger set. It also happens to have a large underbelly contingent so be warned, but it is a great tool for learning how to build a presence outside of your web site.
5) Join LinkedIn – this is a service that’s been called Facebook for business. It is really about meeting and connecting with like-minded business folks. It is a great service for people looking for a job or to make connections with people who may be out of reach without an introduction.
6) Visit Ning - this is the largest custom social networking service that allows you to create your own community using a variety of tools that can be branded to match your current site.
7) Create a Workbench profile – this one’s a little self-serving as this is my new social business networking site but it’s a good example of the personalized business community that’s the next wave for small business.
8 ) Create a Twitter account – this tool is pretty silly on the surface, it allows you to type in 160 characters or less what you are doing right now. It feels like a giant waste of time but a very large and active community has grown around this kind of micro-blogging and you should understand how people are using it.
9) Create a StumbleUpon profile – This is a social network built around discovering and recommending sites that you like. Active stumblers can send a lot of traffic your way.
10) Create a Digg account – this site allows you to keep up to the minute with what’s happening in the world of business. Users submit and vote on what is believed to be the most important content.
You might also consider Mixx, Squidoo and Flickr as places to find and develop niche related communities when you’re ready to really get out there. Think of mySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook as your labs – get in there and experiment for the future. then start planning your own personalized social business network.
About the Author: John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide. You can find more information by visiting DuctTapeMarketing.com
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55 Responses to “Build a Social Network Empire”
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In the post you mentioned in 08 we will see a change to social business networking.
How would I find what is in the works of being the next Facebook for business?
I have serious doubts that social networking has a long term future. I suspect that community building on individual networks will last much longer and give better bangs for the bucks.
I tend to agree on the social network thing, but I am still not enjoying or reaping any benefits from partaking in any of them.
it’s so lucrative
imagine – building your site or empire for 2-3 years and you at least get 10m from buyers
that’s your ticket to retirement!
I have only just started an online presence and am yet to really get into the whole’ linking thing’. I did happen to ’stumble’ my website, and the next day got about 30 visits from it. however,the day after was none, and none since. How do you go about getting a ’steady’ supply from these sites?
There’s a lot of potential in social networking sites. If you don’t benefit from it, then you aren’t doing something right. The thing is, it takes a lot of time to build something but reading couple of good articles will show you the way.
Getting repeated traffic is easiest with StumbeUpon while MySpace, Propeller or similar will give you a burst of traffic for every shot you make there. Of course, all that is true if you have something to offer – good content.
Sure social networking is the buzz word right now so those are some really valid points you’ve made in your post. Every one is logged on and hooked!
been their, first social networking works it sure is, but only for a short term the next month whew you’re forgotten, better think of other alternative for long term business.
This is an information that is obviously of great value. I totally
agree with your statements.Thanks for sharing it!
I’ve done 7 out of the 10 things suggested. I feel pretty good about my social network empire.
Nice article, I have done some of the method you mention above. I will try the others methods. Thanks.
interesting…
Hi there and happy Valentine’s day to you, hope you’re having a great one
I do get some steady traffic to my blog with Stumble Upon, but it takes a lot of work, constant posting and stumbling.
Oi.. im interest in this stuff. thanks for the great tips there
Nice article, very good suggestion. I love all and I have done some of the method you mention above. Thanks for the post
Those’re some great tips, I’m gonna try all of them. Thanks!
I have only just started an online presence and am yet to really get into the whole’ linking thing’.
Good stuff.
The challenge I face is coordinating all the social networking I do to make sure it is done consistently. Especially because I do this for more than one business.
I’d love to see some tips on how to keep things organized and tracked, even while trying to develop my “empire” organically.
Nice informations. I would like to try. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Jason where have you been at? Is everything okay? Maybe you won that trip and are on vacation. I hope things are good and hope to hear from you soon.
I believe that these social bookmarking sites are a great way to get quality incoming links to your existing web pages. I am curious to see what the benefit of these other social networking sites are. Wouldn’t it just be more convenient to create a facebook group targeted towards a specific niche?
Twitter is the only thing I haven’t tried yet, haven’t heard anything great about it anyway.
Great steps for begginers..!
Wow, I even did not know that there are so many social bookmarking websites exist…
Ha! Just kidding. But good article on social network though.
Great article I relly enjoyed it Thank you
I hadn’t heard of Twitter prior to reading this article but will definately give it a go and see how I get on.
Stumbleupon used to be good but the content has gone down hill recently. Digg has suffered as well, too many people trying to get traffic without making any real effort.
The problem with places like myspace is that the demographic is a very young one. Granted you may be targeting those that have lots of extra cash, yet depending on what you market you may have no success. I have been told by many a teenager that anyone over age 25 on my space is a dork. I hope that tomorrows social networks will be more useful as you say.
Any chance of social networking crashing any time soon? Any way that I could speed the crash up??
Haven’t seen a new post in a couple of weeks now?
This article is one of the best I have red. Thank you for this article
Truly a master piece article thank you for sharing…
Hello we havent heard from you in a while?
“The problem with places like myspace is that the demographic is a very young one.”
I second this.:) I tried social marketing before and the conversion was damn low if compare with my other traffic sources.
I have account for most of those mentioned…but no time maintaning it….i would focus on a few which you are comfortable with
I don’t know where people get the time (and the patience) to work on all those networks… maybe it’s time i gave it a try.
How do you increase a Technorati score?
I trying so hard doing it but it is not easy at all.
I will keep on working hoping results will come.
Francesco
I have known some social bookmarking sites as it is good way to share our views to others and also get criticism on our topics.
As a businessman, it is best way to get pros and cons about your product and services.
But, John, you have describe deeply understanding of how to make it effective.
Thanks
Great advice. Of course, if someone could do just one, I’d have to emphasize either the StumbleUpon or blog commenting.
update: I tried twitter and to tell the truth it’s not really my thing, I don’t find it easy to navigate around..
Good list to get started with social networking/bookmarking. I have found that it’s an effective method of getting links and traffic if done properly.
There is a fine line between abusing and monetizing the social networks…. one of the big myspace phishers just got slammed with 250 million in fines. ouch!
Great article. I have found such a good knowledge about social networking. I will follow your suggestion. Thanks for sharing…
These are great tips but I am sure I will be stopping at the 5th one. I still dont have a myspace page believe it or not.
Thanks for the recommendations, I think that for the most part they will be beneficial, but I question the part about Myspace – it seems to me that the Myspace crowd consists of a bunch of 13-year-olds looking for music and girls and it doesn’t seem to align with our floor cleaning equipment industry.
I’m guessing that following blogs, and, especially LinkedIn and other professional social networks will do the most good for me.
Very useful list, when I first started using social networks for business I too thought it was a waste of time. But after a few months if you have put a lot of time into using them you may start to see a few results and hopefully over the coming months really start to see its use.
Yes I have tried facebook but not others. Isn’t it great to have these social media sites to let us get connected with each other? But if a specific community that is dedicated to certain like group of professionals get to know each others interests and even sharing ideas with each other.
when I first started using social networks for business I thought it was a waste of time. But after a few months if you have put a lot of time into using them you may start to see a few results and hopefully over the coming months really start to see its use.
social networking is the thing now.Great tips will try ‘em out.
very intresting article thanks for sharing
Well I am using all websites listed above. These websites really benefits you. Currently I just bookmark a story, and result reflects. It contributes little but we all know every drop counts. I like your article. Nice post
Social network can take a lot of time up without too much reward. SEO on the other hand is a different story.
I will definitely try this although it is a little time consuming.
Looks like Myspace is in trouble now that Facebook is quickly gaining most of its visitors.