Marketing through online social networking – is it an image builder or breaker? 

The answer is really “it depends”! In many countries, “conversations with friends and peers” is as trusted a source of information about a company as “articles in newspapers” or “television news coverage.” For example, within the nine European Union countries surveyed, 44% trust conversations with friends and peers while 33% trust articles in newspapers.

To begin with, what exactly is online social networking? A social network service enables its members to build online networks of people who share interests and activities. Most services provide a collection of various ways for members to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on. The most popular social networks in the USA are currently MySpace, Facebook  and LinkedIn. MySpace and Facebook have historically been used for non-business networking, whereas LinkedIn has primarily been focused on business networking. However, there are many other sites, such as Yahoo! Answers, where you can share your knowledge with people who are looking for it—a direct connection with potential customers. 

Some of the benefits of using social networking to enhance your image include: 

• Branding – You can promote your business in your profile.
• Customer Engagement – You can discuss your products and services with your customers and gain valuable feedback.
• Drive Web Traffic – Social networking sites can act as a portal point for driving traffic to your site and other online properties. Your profile may also be indexed by search engines, which will raise awareness of your personal brand.

The main problem with most social networks is their lack of business focus. Because there is so much “noise”, it can be difficult to find other business people with similar interests. LinkedIn is probably the most useful, but restrictions are placed on whom you can contact unless you subscribe to their paid services. Other issues can include: 

• Unfortunately, the internet has made it easy for individuals to claim to be someone who they are not. You may be conversing with a competitor while thinking they are a potential customer.
• There have been numerous reports of instances where online connections resulted in abuse; therefore, you should be careful and meet your contacts in a safe, public place.

MySolutionSpot overcomes these issues and create a location where business people can interact and develop their businesses. The tools you can use to achieve this include: 

• Forums: Discussion groups that focus specifically on business issues.
• Articles: You can read articles by other experts, or increase your business profile by contributing to articles.
• Contacts: If you find someone that you would like to connect with, you can send them a request through the site. If they agree, you can be directly connected to that person to share business ideas.

About the Author: Sian Simon is a marketing consultant based in Virginia.

Link: http://www.coventree.com