Intro to Online Social Networking

Interview with Mums in Control magazine – out this summer. MIC is a fast growing network of mums in business or mumpreneurs. A fast-growing phenomenon I am part of, and keen to support. Not sure about the “in control” bit, but hopefully in balance more often than not.

Mothers are increasingly fed up with jobs that do not allow them to spend enough time with their children. So instead, they are starting their own businesses. The number of women working for themselves has leapt by nearly 20% since 2000, according to official figures, and now tops a million.

And an opinion poll commissioned by the government shows that the most significant factor in the increase is a desire among women for a better balance between work and family life.”

From BBC News

Clarification: my services extend beyond online social networking. See here for more.

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Making Social Networks Your Business…

by Miranda Glover

The social web changes the marketing game by making it participative. LIBBY DAVY, inspirational social web expert, artist and mother, offers insight into becoming SMART (specific, measurable, achieveable, realistic and timely) when marketing your business.

Read this article carefully, it’s the new holy grail for all aspiring mumpreneurs…

An Australian communications and PR specialist with an engaging smile, Libby Davy now lives with her technology-savvy husband, young daughter and dog, in Brighton, West Sussex. She’s a web champion with a social conscience, who is hugely enthusiastic about the way women use the internet today. “We are natural social animals,” she explains, “Women love to communicate, to collaborate, to create connections. The internet’s our natural home.”

A few years ago, terms like ‘googling’ and ‘surfing’ may have felt alien, but today we all do these things with the same ease as hanging out the washing. The web’s become invaluable and not just for doing the supermarket shopping. We’re also communicating with old friends and ex-colleagues and keeping an eye on our kids through the social websites they use, like Bebo and Facebook, too. Oh! and of course some of us are using it for dating, as well. Even so, are we really taking full advantage of the internet’s social dimension to support our business needs? Libby shakes her head; clearly thinks not.

She and her husband run a technology company called, Nodestone, which combines middleware development (her husband’s bit and a techy term you don’t need to understand) with a social networking consultancy (the bit we are interested in). Through it, Libby runs workshops to explain how the web is a social network that enables you to do far more than keep in touch with your mates. Whilst traditional media can still be useful for promoting your business, the web is SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely). Libby encourages us to, “Try not to fear the jargon. There are a few new terms worth understanding, as they will give you confidence to harness all the values the web has to offer.”

She points me to her website for some clear advice. It tells me that “vast numbers of people are using blogs, social networks, photo and video sharing sites as important marketing and engagement tools.” Libby explains further, “Building your buzz in these spaces is a good way to find your market. Getting the right bloggers to write about your activities (blog outreach) is also a good way to reach interested people.”

These activities will help build traffic to your business’s website. This is critical if you want to raise your search rankings. (e.g when someone keys your business type into google or Yahoo search your company to come up towards the top of the results). Libby explains that to achieve this, “exchange links with relevant blogs and other sites, and remember that a personal request works best. A good way to start is by commenting on other blogs that are writing about your topics. It’s also a good idea to have a blog as part of your site; it’s an easy way to keep the content fresh and the site alive.”

You can use social networks to build a list of ‘friends’ who you can message in a similar way to email and so promote your website. Social networks also have a viral aspect where people sign-up to your cause because they’ve seen it appear in a friend’s newsfeed or on their profile. You can make it easy to sign up by adding links to your Facebook, Myspace, Bebo or other social networking profiles on to your website homepage.

“Social networks work best when you put a lot of time into them, sending messages, responding to friend requests, commenting on other people’s profiles,” Libby warns. “But the results can be really worthwhile. They are informal social spaces, so the more personal and friendly you can be, the better. People in social networks will tend to ignore corporate communications.”

She advises that you think carefully about who you are trying to attract using social networking sites, in some societies they are mostly used by a younger audience, however they are increasingly gaining popularity with different communities.

Twitter is the most recent term on everyone’s lips, since Barack Obama used it so successfully for his presidential campaign.

“It’s hard to describe Twitter well,” laughs Libby, “Except as a mixture of micro-blogging (160 characters per entry as in mobile phone text messages) and social networking. It works across the web and with mobile phones and feels ‘live’.”

People are using Twitter to share interesting content, especially to respond to things that are happening at that moment or to share snippets of and links to interesting articles and blog posts.

Evaluation

I ask her how you can you see if all your social marketing is working?

“A simple tool you can use for free is Google Alerts,” she says. “You can set this up through going to the main google website and specifying which key words you want it to alert you about when they are used on a website. Google Alerts then emails you when these keywords are mentioned in online media and blogs.”

“The mantra of online marketing is ‘measure everything’. For your site, the main tool will probably be Google Analytics, it’s free and provides a lot of detail on your website statistics; who’s using your site, where they are coming from to reach your site and what they are looking at. For your social networks you’ll largely be relying on the stats you can get from them, such as number of friends, number of comments, and number of video views. The web promises what traditional PR & marketing never could – the possibility of measuring engagement.”

The social web changes the whole marketing game by making it participative. You don’t just want to get people interested, you want to get them involved. Encourage people to bookmark your site in social bookmarking services like Delicious and always encourage friends and supporters of your initiative to and encourage your friends to promote your cause.”

With this Libby takes a breath. “There’s so much more to say,” she laughs, “but perhaps this is enough for one day. “

10 new web terms your business should know….

Blog

A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse time order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject; some function as more personal online diaries. Blog software (eg. Wordpress) is often used to build websites for organisations now, as it is easy and free to use.

Syndication

Syndication means that anyone can subscribe to your blog and receive automatic notification that it has been updated. It uses RSS feeds.

RSS

Really Simple Syndication is a technology that allows Internet users to receive ongoing, constantly updated information from many sources through a simple reader or aggregator (eg. Google Reader). This is supplied through an “RSS feed” that users can subscribe to.

Aggregator

A feed aggregator, also known as a feed reader, news reader or simply as an aggregator, is client software or a Web application which aggregates syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and vlogs in a single location for easy viewing.

Social bookmarking

The ability to save and categorise a personal collection of bookmarks through services such as Delicious and share them with others. Users may also take bookmarks saved by others and add them to their own collection, as well as to subscribe to the lists of others.

Web rings

A group of websites with a common theme, built in a loop, allowing a surfer easy access to subsequent sites in the ring by clicking on links. There are thousands of web rings around in all sorts of categories and issues.

Social networking

A broad class of websites and services that allow you to connect with friends, family, and colleagues online, as well as meet people with similar interests or hobbies. Popular examples include MySpace, Facebook, Linked In. Even photo sharing websites like Flickr have become places for social networking through shared interests.

Online Media Storage

Websites that allow you to store, share and view a range of media such as digital photographs (see Flickr), audio files like podcasts, video (see YouTube).

Carnivals

Weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly roundups of blogs on a particular issue or topic.

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Note: things have already moved on, and this would not still be my essential list of terms.