Your business is taking on a new marketing push (much like mine) and you’ve decided that social media is the way to go. So, now how do you choose which social networking services to use. Here’s how I do it…
1. Make sure it benefits the cause.
There are plenty of social networking sites out there, each taking on a different niche. Make sure that any social networking site fits your niche … or something that can be adapted (massaged, bent, broken, hacked) toward that end. Don’t waste valuable time with services that don’t fit the audience that you’re trying to reach. You’re not networking to get dates or to keep up on celebrity gossip, you’re here to search for business opportunity.
2. Make sure it’s it fun & easy.
This one’ s pretty self-explainatory, if it’s not fun and easy, then it’s work. In my opinion, it’s easier to succeed when work is fun. Remember to relay that fun attitude in your posts and profiles. It’s good to have a personality, but keep it professional.
3. Find out if it’s free.
Does it need to be? Well, in short, no. Social networking doesn’t need to be free, but there needs to be a darn good reason to pay. That’s not to say that social networking services and their developers aren’t deserving of compensation. Just remember, it’s your content, and in many cases the service is going to post it right next to ads that generate income for the service, not you. So, my advice is to use free services as often as possible, and only pay for services that help you build a competitive advantage. Remember, good technology is always worth the price, the trick is figuring out what’s good technology without risking the fee.
4. Make sure there are there privacy controls.
This covers two aspects. First, make sure you can choose what type of notifications you receive? You don’t want to clutter another inbox with newsletters or monthly/weekly/daily updates. Try to reduce notices to only those people who are trying to contact you via the network.
Second, make sure you can hide and/or delete content whenever you want. It’s a catch 22, you create a profile or account with your business information, then upload some content to test it all out. Later, if you decide that you no longer wish to continue, you’ll want to be able to delete your profile. (not to mention, this lets you do a some polite internet house keeping.) A good tip is to use test content when you’re trying a new service. See how it’s all displayed, and make sure that there’s no objectionalble material within reach of the reader.
5. Make sure it will work well within the network.
The classic “does not play well with others” checkbox. I’m all for multi-tasking, so for me it needs to do more than just one thing, unless that one thing is pretty darn important. If a service forces you to go out of your way to interact with it, then it’s missing the point of social networking.
6. Make sure it’s non-invasive.
You spend a lot of time creating internet content. Maybe this involves graphic design, a bit of technical writing, maybe some HTML & CSS. It’s frustrating to upload content to a social networking service only to find that the service has plastered it with ads, logos, watermarks or other proprietary marks. I think a good social networking service deserves recognition, but I also think that good services know how to get that recognition without interfering with their users’ content.
Using these points will help you choose services that fit your project. Later, I’ll post a list of the services that I’ve chosen using these guidelines. M.
