Social Networking sites

Social Networking Sites

Definition:  A social networking site is nothing but an electronic platform through which people

from different parts of the societies, cities, states & even countries can interact with each

other.

Its Examples:  Example of such sites predominantly are  Facebook, Orkut, Big-adda, Twitter &

Linked In. However, Facebook & Twitter are the most coveted sites & intensely used nowadays.

Its benefit:  Social Networking sites are beneficial in many ways as they are mainly used for the following reasons:

Find Social Networking Sites List On Topwebsiteslist.com
Social Networking Sites List

A.   Personal Reasons:

In this category, people use it to update their status or even view their friends’ status, or look at their photos. Some use it to connect to people they’ve met, a potential girlfriend/boyfriend perhaps, or someone who shares the same interests. Another great way of taking advantage of the personal side of Facebook is keeping in touch with people hundreds of miles away, maybe somebody who has gone travelling or moved to the other side of the world. In the past it would have been nigh on impossible to keep in touch, much less keep up to date with what they are doing. It is fascinating to see that there are so many different things going on in one place, and even more incredible that they seem to all work in harmony.

B.   For Business:

With the rise of Internet Marketing, social media is being embraced by businesses more and more. Innovative ways of utilizing these tools by connecting directly with customers are being found.

Companies are seeing that the best way to conduct themselves online is to speak to their customers directly using these social networking sites, Twitter being especially useful for this. It increases the reputation of the company, gets them positive reviews and shows that they really care about the customer. It also gives a human face to the large corporation, meaning that customers or potential customers will feel much more comfortable coming back.

There are some great examples of this strategy online, with a company called Virgin Trainsbeing one of the most successful. They have a small team of dedicated and named staff who run the Twitter feed as part of their overall PR role. Whenever a customer has a question or a complaint about the trains, for example – the train is late or something has gone wrong with their ticket, they post it on the Twitter feed and usually get a pretty quick response.

The response is sometimes a simple apology about a train being late, but it gives a human element to the company and this simple gesture could stop them losing a customer for the future.

They can also act as a sort of customer service line, say somebody loses the code to pick up their ticket from the fast ticket machine they will post on Twitter, and get a response with the information they need.

C. For Marketing:

Another Twitter success story is Dell and their recent Internet Marketing strategy. Their outlet site sells refurbished PCs, and they post details about the newest ones on their Twitter feed. They also post special offers just for Twitter users, and they send information about sales, along with discount vouchers to their Twitter followers. The company has generated $6.5million in revenue from this venture.

This shows the power of marketing on Twitter. This sort of strategy works well for e-commerce sites especially as they can market to an already targeted audience.

D.   For Entertainment:

Going hand in hand with the ‘social’ element of Social Networking, people sometimes go on purely for entertainment purposes. Myspace is a prime example of this, as many famous artists have been discovered through these sites (sort of sounds like marketing, huh?). Music is a big part but also videos, such as Youtube viral offerings, are easily spread on social networking sites.

The newest craze is on Facebook, with all the game applications that have appeared over the last couple of years. The most popular of these is a game called Farmville which has managed to acquire 72.9 MILLION users per month. That is a crazy amount of people to be playing a game about running a virtual farm!

Now, a site like Facebook has not really been discovered for many of the other purposes of social networking. How many bloggers do you see marketing, connecting with customers or even conducting any sorts of business through the site? Not many I’ll bet.

It is very important to know the different usage of Social Networking sites BEFORE implementing a Social Media strategy. If you get it wrong and target the wrong people you could be jeopardizing your online reputation as well as any time, effort and money put into the project.

Now that we have seen the benefits of Social Networking Sites, let’s look into

It’s disadvantages as well.

Because students often post detailed and specific information on Facebook (including phone numbers, addresses, class schedules, social plans, etc.) you can be more easily stalked by strangers (or even acquaintances).

Identity theft can also be a significant risk of social networking. Personal details like your full name, names of your family members, your phone number, birthday, address, and place of employment can all be used by identity thieves.  "Passport-style" profile photos also make it easier for identity thieves to replicate your online presence.

 Find Social Networking Sites List On Topwebsiteslist.com
Social Networking Sites List