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Article Title: Profiting From Online Social Networking
Author: Jerry Work
Word Count: 621
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This is the second in a series of articles we will be
publishing relaying thoughts and ideas from the Internet
Retailer Conference in Chicago, which occurred June 5th through
June 7th. Peter Kosciewicz, Director of E-Commerce for the
Eastwood Company, and Chris Saito, Senior Director, Shopping
Products for Yahoo! Shopping, delivered a presentation entitled
"Social Networking: The Peer Pursuasion Marketing Tool."
According to Kosciewicz, the Web today has grown into an
"architecture of participation" that facilitates social
networking through devices such as blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts,
and more. Forrester Research has published studies that show
that traditional marketing is continuing to lose credibility.
For example, in 2002, 78% of respondents in a survey said that
ads are a good way to learn about a new product. In 2004, that
number had dropped to 46%. In 2002, 14% of respondents agrees
that companies generally tell the trust. As pathetic as 14% is,
in 2004, it had declined even further - down to 7%. Social
networking as a means of marketing overcomes this lack of
consumer trust because it relies on the word of the consumer
rather than the word of the producer. Research from Datamonitor
reported that 85% of repondents in a survey indicated that
word-of-mouth from friends, family, or colleagues is more
trustworthy than corporate-generated content.
So how do you take advantage of social networking to sell more
product? Simple - you open yourself up. You plant the seeds of
a community to grow up around your site by using devices such
as blogs, customer reviews, and forums to give a voice to your
customers or prospective customers. The caveat is that you must
be high quality. You must have high quality service and a high
quality product. If not, avoid this marketing method.
Kosciewicz outlined four important rules for using social
networking on your web site:
1. Guide but don't control.
2. Never censor.
3. Don't be afraid of the negative.
4. Don't be paranoid.
If you open up a forum on your site but then restrict what
people are allowed to say, such as removing posts that are
negative toward your company or that mention your competitors,
then you will do more damage than good to your reputation. Use
negativity as a way to improve your business. If people are
negative, look at that as feedback and act on it. Make changes,
and then let your community know about it. Don't worry about
your community talking about your competition. Your attitude
has to be that you are the best, so why worry about it?
As a community develops around your web site, certain members
will establish themselves as more influential than others. They
will be more outspoken, and will be the ones who often respond
to others. Cultivate these members, because they can be
powerful allies. Once you have identified the more influential
members of your community, contact them regularly, give them
free product, become their friend. Feed your influencers
information, and they will distribute it for you. But do not
make it appear that you are only interested in them because
they can help you sell stuff. You need to be genuine.
Measuring the impact of social networking is difficult. Unlike
other forms of marketing, there is no direct connect between
social networking activity and sells. What you will want to do
is track traffic to pages such as customer reviews, referral
links, etc.
Social networking can be a powerful marketing tool, if you have
a high quality product and are not afraid of an open dialogue
with your customers.
If you would like help implementing a social networking
strategy for your web site, call Work Media at 1-888-299-4837
or email info@workmedia.
About The Author: Jerry Work is a partner in Work Media, a
Nashville-based Internet marketing firm that specializes in
helping companies implement aggressive, multi-pronged Internet
marketing plans. Check out WM's blog site,
http://ICanBeFound.
marketing. http://WorkMedia.
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