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Part 3.1 Social Networking sites, Facebook and Myspace
Ever been on Facebook or MySpace, or better yet, built a profile on either or both? Well done – you’re one of those above-mentioned users creating content on a Web 2.0 site/social media site!
A social networking site comprises of a collection of tools that make it easy to stay in contact with your friends: new and old, close and far, and even sometimes forgotten ones that find you. According to Facebook, I’ve got over 200 friends, but I’m not sure how exactly!
So the power of these sites relies on the old adage of 10 people invite 10 people who invite another 10 people, and so on until you’ve got over 50 million users (if you’re Facebook) and over 100 and something million users if you’re MySpace. I’m not going to give specific numbers as it changes all the time but check out Marketingcharts.com for the latest stats.
Did someone say marketing goldmine?
Think about it: traditionally, Old (boring heck) Media could only give you basic demographics about your audience or an audience you are trying to target, such as age group, location, sex breakdown, or some sort of LSM or expendable income measure. On social networking sites, people voluntarily give up all sorts of information about themselves: exact location, age, preferences, marital status, job, industry, favourite books, movies, websites, cities etc.
A great example I heard the other day is if you are a wedding dress service company in, say, Derby in England, you could specifically target all the ladies on Facebook of a certain age in England (or anywhere in the world) that are engaged and thinking of getting married in the Derbyshire area. The options are endless!
Actions: The only way to truly understand the power and addictiveness of these sites is to try them for yourself. Simply go to the website, sign up and follow the prompts to start searching for friends. Once you find just one, you can search all of their friends. You’ll be amazed who you will find! If you are struggling, let me know and I will help you get started. Which one do I prefer? Definitely Facebook, but that’s a whole other debate for another post.
Coming soon: definitions of Wikis, blogs, Widgets, and all those other things I mentioned.
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