Hi, I’m a Social Networker, and I approve this message.
Friday, October 24th, 2008, by Graphics.net
Tis the season for casting your vote, and this very simple concept has become a corner stone of social networking. Much like twittering so people know what you’re up to, blogging or sharing your favorite music, people like to give their opinion about topics that matter to them. Whether it’s the xBox game of year, funniest cat picture, or news stories; every vote counts. Each vote can boost or hurt the prominence of a topic because rankings are updated real-time, and can drive traffic to your site. Unlike traditional ballot elections, new visitors see your vote before they make their decision, broadening your influence. Nor does it have to be a silent vote; everyone can step up on the soap box and comment.
You get a vote, a voice, and an audience. And, possibly a virtual ego.
Opening the 2-way conversation
Whether it’s a rating, digg, vote, comment or tasty bookmark, as the site owner you have just opened a dialogue with your site visitor. Gone the way of the dodo have brochureware websites. It’s no doubt that the success of the most popular social networking sites can be attributed not only to technical advances, but applying them to a better understanding of human nature.
If Jimmy jumped off a bridge, would you jump to?
There’s nothing wrong with learning from the big names and emulating what works. It takes a large budget to stay on the cutting edge, but it’s rather affordable to hang one step behind until you are ready to jump to the front.
You may not have thought about Ebay this way, but their success is in large part due to creating an extremely effective social network. Well, that and no sales tax. People love yard sales, bargain hunting, collectibles etc, and Ebay has taken it to the extreme. You can talk via email, rate each other with feedback, and bookmark your favorite sellers. You get a ranking number and symbol next to your name. You even get your own noun, Ebayer. It’s about as interactive as e-Commerce gets.
Another prime example is Digg.com. You can submit news stories, pictures or video in a variety of topic categories. Other users can “digg” (ie. vote) it with one-click. You can leave a comment, voicing your opinion for everyone else to read. If you find something especially good, or one of your company’s press releases, you can send your friends list a “shout” to check it out. Now, getting your submissions on the first page of Digg is a whole other story, and that is where building your sphere of influence comes into play. Again, giving users a vote and a voice builds success.
Sites like Facebook, MySpace for casual users and LinkedIn for professionals also do a great job meeting the current demand for this type of service. They certainly give their users plenty of opportunity to build their profile, friends lists, vote, comment, and generally speaking, be heard.
The common denominator with these sites is they give people a vote, a forum to voice their opinion and an audience to be heard. They provide a community for each user, a status within that community, and a sense of belonging. It’s no wonder they are successful by today’s Internet standards.
The cat is out of the bag, around the corner and down the street
It’s no secret social networking is huge. Heck, there are even social networks for children if you count services like MyePets.com, Neopets.com or Imbee.com. Everyone knows it works, and there are stats to prove it. You can’t go to any tech event and not hear about it.
The catch is you shouldn’t just say, “I want my site to be social” and expect it to happen. Fortunately, with the right techniques, it’s not that hard.
Social Destinations
One problem with current social networks is isolation, ie. they aren’t really networked. Much like you’ll never get your friends and associates to all show up at a given bar for happy hour, you’ll never get everyone online at Facebook at the same time. Furthermore, there isn’t an effective way of knowing where people are hanging out at that moment. Users end up creating a myriad of accounts on different sites. Maintaining all of these accounts becomes a hassle if you want your information synchronized.
There is room for this phenomenon to grow, so it’s not too late to get into the game.
A vote, a voice and marketing
There are plenty of ways for you to add social networking components to your website.
Among the easiest is to add membership to your site. Lets users create personalized avatars or icons and start contributing content to your site by commenting on stories or products. Give members a voice.
Let members rate, rank or vote on your products, content or other aspects of your site. In fact, encourage them to do so and include popularity as an advanced search option. Please note that all user contributions can be moderated, and likely should, so you don’t find slander on your site.
Not only does this open a 2-way conversation with your customers and visitors, it personalizes the content on the site. It makes it real. Customers are more likely to shop when they can read other people’s positive experiences.
Additionally, your company gets a ton of good marketing data to play with, not to mention consumer insight into your company. Once you have the infrastructure set up, you open many other possibilities for growth.
Now, get out there and vote!
