Corporate Social Networking
I think I could write an essay on this subject, but what this is really about is keeping your customers informed. That has to be the main function, so what is Social Networking really all about.
You should regard Social Networking as a Passive Message Forum. Basically research is now indicating that people used email to push their questions and messages to others. But now social networking is allowing people to just say ‘Hi – here I am and I’m doing this’. It is passive and means that you can know what your friends and contacts are doing without asking them. It is a huge shift in the way we communicate.
Also to note, whereas companies like Facebook started out with the idea of ‘friends’, ‘sharing’, ‘events’ and ‘groups’ – it is a little like SMS and Mobile phones the killer application is ‘Status Updates’. Twitter is the golden example and does nothing else.
What social networking companies are realising is that ‘status updates’ are the central key to making every else work. Bit like email is central to your computer experience, you can do everything else, but without email it is largely meaningless.
So you’ll see more and more that Facebook, Yammer, Twitter & so on will put more and more inferance on Status Updates.
What does this all mean to you… well using services like Ping.fm you can keep all your customers fully informed to exactly what you are doing at anytime. It is seriously powerful stuff. My final comment for the month is that within the Mobile Phone revolution that is now upon us, Status Updates have just been given another massive boost.
You need to let customers know what you are doing at all times. It is as simple as that.