Social Networking in Today's Business Environment MIS 304 Dr. Fang 4/27/09 James Olas Jordan Pepper Patrick Fahey Lance Johnson Clarke Ledger

Overview Basics How they work Business Value

MySpace FaceBook rate of growth is higher Goal is profitability not greatest number of users. Focusing on music and advertising

MySpace Music Vehicle for Amazon Merchandise and Ticket sales MySpace Music Player

Advertisements Google Time spent on MySpace vs. FaceBook “Hyper-Targeted” ads Sponsored Pages

Outlook Road to profitability will be tricky Executives heads on the chopping block Will MySpace be able to standout among the rest?

About Friendster How it works Business Value Where they're going

The Creator of Social Networking Privately owned First Social Network site. Founded in 2002 by Jonathan Abrams. 90 million registered users + 62 million unique users. Focus – Help people meet new friends and to stay in touch with old ones. Share online content and media o Dating, New Events, Bands, Hobbies, videos, messaging, and more

What is Friendster? Program founded to create a safer more effective environment for meeting new people by browsing and connecting to friends, and friends of friends. o Allows members to expand their network at a much higher pace than that of face-to-face. o System Offerings  Fan Profiles  Mobile and text alerts  Diverse language selection  Friendster Developer Program  Patents

How Friendster Works User can navigate through the site to: o Post Bulletins- (4000 characters max) o Upload photos o Post Shout outs- (250 characters max) o Become a fan o Use provided APPS. o Talk to other friends

Why is it Friendster different? Friendster is rated as the # 1 Social Network for “user engagement” among the top 5 global Social Networks. o Fastest growing SN in Asian countries. o Average user spends 200+ minutes per visitor per month. o Launched all language support on a single domain. o First global online SN to support Asian and other languages on a single domain so users around the world can talk to each other.

Friendster for Business Post Products (E-business) o Advertise through APPS (Rock You) Blog Business Forum’s o Finance o Real Estate o Economy o General

Growth in Asia 23% of an average users friends are located in different countries. Friendster is seen as an entertainment site by China’s government officials Huge growth in Asian countries Leads competitors by at least a 2:1 margin Market is still growing

“Giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

Founded Social networking site Started in February 2004 by three Harvard students Strictly for networking around Harvard Expanded to other Ivy League Schools two months later

What can you do? Share personal and professional interests with people Create a profile o Biography o Pictures o Videos o Messages Look at friends profiles

More….. Interactive Chat Bumper stickers Applications o Mind Jolt o Record a video o 1000s of others

Breakdown

Advertising Apple Movie Companies Many others

Where Relationships Matter

About LinkedIn 39 Million Users Launched In 2003 Made up of business contacts "Professionals"

What Makes LinkedIn Different For networking with personal & business contacts The site is used for job hunting Businesses can use the site for data gathering Many executives use the site for business purposes

Business Uses of LinkedIn Human Resources o Hiring o Referencing Advertising o To professionals o To job hunters o As a small business Getting business questions answered by current professionals o LinkedIn Answers Polling current professionals in a certain area o 60% of LinkedIn users respond to surveys

Twitter Different kind of social networking Social networking, news, business use Similar to blog Instant updates Rapid growth o 2008: users < 1M o 2009: users > 6M

How it Works Updates = Tweets Max characters in a tweet = 140 o Designed to read posts on cell phones Followers - get updates from people being followed Search Function - find people or tweets

Example of a Tweet (45 characters)

Business Uses Marketing o Create presence on Twitter o Post news about company (PR) o Advertise products o Post special deals o Interact

Creating a Presence (link to web site)

Post News + Interaction = good PR

Posting Deals

Link from Twitter

Strategies Tweets are short, so make posts meaningful Post links to website Consider which words to use o Keywords searchable by search engines including Twitter Search Include pictures using TwitPic For video include a link to YouTube Hire Social Networking San Diego o Justin French

Social Networking San Diego

More Strategies Use correct spelling and grammar Be transparent, don't be fake Don't focus solely on advertising Follow others and interact (Starbucks example)

Uses Twitter may have ads on site Twitter may sell data on users to businesses "- I have connected to a lot of people that I either never met or never would have met if it wasn't for Twitter. - I have engaged directly with people that I otherwise would not have had a chance to speak to. Forget 6 degrees of separation, Twitter creates a universe of 1 degree of separation or less. - Because of one of my Twitter contacts I am now the owner of a horse (with another one to follow). yes, that's right, a real life, non-virtual benefit!... - Twitter has made me aware of breaking news long before the traditional media has caught on. - Twitter DM's [direct messages] have taken over from as my preferred method of contacting (or pinging) a contact. Replies are much faster. - And off course I have taken part or followed lots & lots of excellent discussions or exchanges of opinion on Twitter. " ( 2009)

Conclusion Web 2.0 = marketing use of social networking sites New way to market Business model is continually changing Six degrees of separation