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[A525]Analysis Of Social Networks

by Devid Fisman, Dev

The commercial growth of the Internet is largely due to consumers? ability to create relationships with other people that live anywhere in the world based on a common interest. In the 1990's, sites such as Tripod and Geocities were excellent examples of how massive destination sites could be established by providing the ability to express oneself via the Internet. Other businesses such as eBay have also leveraged this phenomenon by building networks of buyers and sellers of all types of products and services, with tremendous success. Early teen-focused sites such as Bolt and College Club helped to pave the way in determining which utilities resonated with younger consumers seeking to create online profiles and establish networks of based on similar interests.

As online networking became socially acceptable among the vast majority of teens, new sites such as Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook took advantage of this phenomenon and became leading examples of social networking sites that reached young consumers. Other businesses such as IGN successfully focused on specific interests such as gaming. The end result is that sites such as MySpace and IGN are among the most popular sites on the Internet, with only the major portals such as Yahoo and Google surpassing them in terms of total page views and traffic.

Social networking sites have also become acceptable among advertisers. MySpace, for example, is expected to generate an over $1 Billion in advertising revenue from 2006 through 2008. Advertisers are attracted to these sites for their ability to draw a massive audience of hard-to-reach young consumers and in a format that combines traditional advertising with direct marketing. Furthermore, the more advanced social networks are able to target advertising based on the profiles of the consumers using the service, providing advertisers with highly targeted messaging in an environment that young consumers spend hours a day within consuming various entertainment. However, due to the general subject matter of sites like MySpace, many advertisers continue to shy away from making major commitments as they are rife with nudity, profanity, and other subject matter not appropriate for advertisers. Other more specific social networking sites such as Bolt and Facebook tend to have greater sell-through and deeper relationships with major advertisers as their content has traditionally been more controlled and targeted.
The growth of social networks can be seen as technology better facilitating a basic social need. Yet, this trend has created another channel for advertisers to bring their product to market. But as this trend continues some would say that saturation becomes a risk and if so will that alienate the very users that make these sites so valuable?

One of the most important rules in marketing your business is that you go where your target market is. With the growing popularity of online social networking websites, it's a little wonder that more and more businesses are looking for ways to take advantage of the millions of members of these sites. With the use of several widely available tools and networking tactics, you will find that marketing your products or services through this medium is not that hard to do.

Make Friends before Making Money
One of the most common misconceptions of businessmen in marketing their products and services through this medium is considering social networks as just place to post their advertisements on. Contrary to popular belief, posting advertisements that look too much like advertisements are not very effective in this medium. As these social networking sites serve as friend-finder platforms, it is often better to maximize its intended function in order to successfully market your products.

Because of this, you have to start from scratch and collect friends as you go along. This may sound a bit hard to do at first but keep in mind that having a great number of friends in your network is the best way for your offers to be noticed. This doesn't mean, however, that you are going to flood the bulletin boards with your products ads right after collecting your friends. Instead, it is advisable to develop real relationships and friendships with those who have become your friends by helping them with their concerns, posting your blogs, sending your testimonials, etc. This way, you can be sure that when you offer your product and services to them, they will be interested and you will have more chances of getting sales.

Thankfully, these social networking platforms offer a way to make your task easier by giving you search options in which to limit your potential friends to those who might be interested in your particular product or service. If you have a pet shop for example, you might want to limit your members search to those people who love pets. Similarly, if you are a car salesman, you might like to look for those people who are of working age rather than those still in college. In social networking sites, you can search by limiting your search criteria to members' hobbies, interests, location, organizations and more. This will help you limit and focus your marketing efforts towards people who are in your target market.

Share Information
Blogging is a great way to reach out to people who might be interested in your service. Remember though that members of social networking websites are not actively looking for products and services so your advertisements would probably be not as effective as you might think.

Instead, try to post blogs that are informative and interesting. These blogs may not convince them outright to buy your products, but you will definitely stand out as someone who knows about this particular product. Thus, you will be one of the persons he or she will approach when considering a purchase in this product category.

Internet Surfers' Choice
This factor may be more important than you think as more and more search engines are integrating the voice of the internet users in how it ranks the websites. Today, you can see this through social bookmarking wherein internet users can bookmark their favorite sites through an online bookmark website, social search engines and social driven content wherein the users' preferences and outlooks are given importance in ranking the websites. Users of social networking sites are given the right to vote on how relevant websites or articles are in their search. All these sites are easily accessible and membership is usually free.

With these new set of tools, you can effectively market your products and services to the millions of social networking users.

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Both Devid Fisman & Susan Esterbill are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Devid Fisman has sinced written about articles on various topics from . David is CEO of ?>uPlayMe. Devid Fisman's top article generates over 480 views. to your Favourites.

Susan Esterbill has sinced written about articles on various topics from Business Intelligence, Affiliate Programs and Online Business. Susan Esterbill enjoys messaging thousands of online friends and she is always looking for one more thing to add to her . Susan Esterbill's top article generates over 22200 views. to your Favourites.