What You Do Not Know About Facebook And Other Social Networks

This article is the result of several recent events that impacted my thinking. Sites like Facebook and MySpace have always existed outside my realm of interest. My view was they were just for teenagers and younger persons. That was true for awhile. Facebook was initiated by a Harvard sophomore originally for college students only; they were not teens to begin with, even though teens have become the primary users of programs like these.

Then I discovered that the then Senator Obama’s instant success was partly the result of getting the Facebook founder on his campaign to get his message out on the Internet. This resulted in millions of new voter registrations in the 18 to 29 years old age group, a demographic coveted by all marketers because of their desire to spend coupled with a high level of disposable income. Many in this age group have not really begun to worry about significant life problems like college for their children (they have just finished this) or their own retirement. In addition to new voters, this Internet savvy group has produced a continuing stream of small contributions totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars! That’s unbelievable for a former nobody with Presidential aspirations.

A second event that got my attention was reading Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson.
An interview with one of the authors, William Arruda, caught my eye in the August, 2007, issue of Entrepreneur. For years I realized many of my written articles were appearing whenever I Googled myself. Some think this is just an ego trip, but I was looking for ways to bring visitors to my Websites as extra traffic so maybe I could sell something. That interview about personal branding showed me a few things I could begin doing, one of which was to make my LinkedIn information public and up-to-date.
Your personal brand on the Internet is important. This could mean extra money for you because every employer you approach is going to Google you. The better you look, the more likely you are to get a job and good salary. The ideal situation for every job seeker is that instead of applying for jobs, employers find you. This is true also for people looking for prospective business associates. So, how do you position yourself to be the hunted rather than the hunter? Become known as an expert, which you can do with regular social network participation.

The last thing to persuade me of the importance of social networks was a recent article by Jim Louderback in PC Magazine. While researching the sites mentioned in the article, I discovered some network sites of a slightly different nature from the Facebooks. Keith Hampton, of the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, discusses these different networks which he calls Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). ICTs are beginning to influence the way we work by allowing the transfer of office and manufacturing operations to the home or some virtual environment. We’ll first discuss briefly the new ICT networks and then go deeper into the traditional social networks like those in the PC article.
Two non-traditional ICTs are:

i-Neighbors is a way to communicate with your neighbors on a local basis. You have the opportunity to start a community on this site if one does not already exist, as in my case. Perhaps I can find time to start one; it could be an avenue to share expertise from the many retirees in the area, to locate health care services, or to market products and services on a local basis. This is all free, so it’s an economical way to do business and share ideas in your own community. This site has been mentioned in numerous articles in The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Financial Times, and many others. All the articles mention the ability of one of these organized communities to alert members of current crimes being committed, current events, and other helpful ideas.




eNeighbors is another ICT with many community features. If your neighborhood does not have one, you may be able to get one going. The cost is $82.99 billed annually, making it useful for homeowners’ associations, realtors’ groups, neighborhood watch groups, and others with fee services already in place to pay for the cost of eNeighbors. Among the things you can do with this service are uploading important documents for all to see, posting classified ads, taking care of administrative duties, and many other functions important to the community.

Now let’s return to traditional social networks. These have been thought of as programs used by teens, which is not so true anymore, because teens become young adults and continue their relationships with friends beyond their teenage years. But let’s look at how many users begin social networking. According to research by the Pew Foundation a social networking site is an online location where a user can create a profile and build a personal network that connects them to other users. The research also shows these facts about young users:

• 55% of all of online American youths ages 12-17 use an online social networking site.
  
  
• Older girls ages 15-17 are more likely to have used social networking sites and online profiles. 70% of older girls have used an online social network compared with 54% of older boys.
  
  
• 70% of older girls have created an online profile, while only 57% boys have done so.
  
  
• Teens say social networking sites help them manage their friendships (this is significant to realizing users who began network use as teenagers are likely to continue as they grow older—very significant to realizing the importance of using these sites to reach older groups).
  
  
• Household income for 56% of user teenagers is over $50,000.
  
• 84% of teens communicate by posting to a friend’s page on the network site.
  
  
• 85% of teens who use social networking sites say the profile they use or update most often is on MySpace.

Since MySpace is the most-used social network for teenagers who will later become young adults continuing to use the program, we will discuss MySpace first. This will be followed by some other traditional networks that seem to offer opportunities for possible marketing, personal branding, or other entrepreneurial opportunities.
The PC Magazine author refers to MySpace as being like the first college bar you frequented— sort of horrifying today. But the site is really for everyone including:

• Friends who want to talk Online.
  
• Single people who want to meet other Singles.
  
• Matchmakers who want to connect their friends with other friends.
  
• Families who want to keep in touch—map your Family Tree.
  
• Business people and co-workers interested in networking.
  
• Classmates and study partners.
  
• Anyone looking for long lost friends.

How Do I Use MySpace?
• First, Sign Up and Create a Profile
(Your Profile is Your Space on the Web, where you can describe yourself, hobbies and interests. You can even upload pictures and write journals).
• Second, Invite your Friends to join Your Personal Network.
OR, Search the site for your Friends who are already Members of Myspace.
• Third, View the Connections you create between Your Friends and Their Friends. Some people have thousands of people in their extended network! Meet your Friends’ Friends and Suggest Matches! You can communicate with anyone in your Personal Network.
Sign-up is easy, straightforward, and free. You must agree to terms of service and privacy policies. There are three special groups apparently representing large numbers of members. They are Band/Musician, Comedian, and Filmmaker.
MySpace is owned by News Corporation, the owner of the Fox network. All services are free to end users; revenue is the result of advertising based on information extracted from members and used to target the ads each member sees. In 2006, there were 106 million accounts with daily additions over 200,000.
The next network, LinkedIn, is great for furthering your career (or brand), but not as much fun. LinkedIn is an online network of more than 20 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries. You can use it to:

• Find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended.
  
  
• Be found for business opportunities.
  
  
• Search for great jobs.
  
  
• Discover inside connections within a specific company or organization that can help you land jobs and close deals.
  
  
• Post and distribute job listings.
  
  
• Find high-quality passive candidates, people who aren’t actively pursuing any career or opportunity.
  
  
• Get introduced to other professionals through the people you know.

Basic membership is free.

Plaxo is a place to collect buckets full of business cards from your new best friends, many of whom you may be afraid to meet in the light of day. Membership includes 40 million people. They have introduced a new benefit called “Pulse.” This is a unique way for you to keep up with your other contacts wherever they are and whatever they are doing, no matter where in the world they are. Plaxo is sort of an online address book with reported 15 million users. It requires a very simple sign-up and it’s free.

Now, here is Orkut, a Google experiment, that has become very crowded—with Brazilians and Indians (both of which are up-and-coming business countries). As of May 2008, 43.9% of the traffic came from Brazil, followed by India with 38.8%. Orkut can help you maintain existing relationships with pictures and messages and establish new ones by reaching out to people you've never met. Use it to find people who share your hobbies and interests, look for romantic connections, or establish new business contacts. You can also create and join a wide variety of online communities to discuss current events, reconnect with old school friends, and other interests. To join, just sign in with your Google Account. They have a corny slogan: “We hope to put you on the path to social bliss soon.”

Next is Pownce, which is supposed to be the place for super-cool Web 2.0 kids to hang out. Pownce originally came on the Internet by invitation only and instantly created great demand for these invitations. More recently, in January 2008, it has become available to the public by signing up on the Website. Click the “Join Pownce” button, then read and accept Terms of Service listed at the “Legal” link, bottom of any page. Sign up is simple and straight forward; some services require payment of a fee.
On Pownce you can share files, links, events, and messages. You can also have real conversations with other people. There is a download available making it possible to operate Pownce right from your desktop, without going to the Website.

Here is a network that is a little unusual. It is Twitter, where everyone gets on stage for a short while. The site allows unlimited 140 characters short messages. You can look up friends and acquaintances who belong to Twitter, or encourage your friends to join. Then see what they are doing from their posts. If you wish, you can begin to send your own short messages to them whenever it is convenient.

There is more information on the Twitter blog. Here I find that, as I write, Twitter is experiencing unusually slow service on their server which they are trying to fix. There is a lot more about Twitter included in extensive archives. Twitter has downloads, so you can use it right from your desktop. There are also a number of widgets for cell phones and even some specifically for your new iPhone. The service is very flexible, and joining Twitter is simple and very quick. You just have to be over 13 years old and accept their Terms of Service.
 
Many organizations (such as the Los Angeles Fire Department) have embraced the Twitter technology and put it to use in situations such as the October 2007 California wildfires.
Higher education is also using it to relay important information to students in a timelier manner, like The University of Texas at San Antonio College of Engineering. Several U.S. presidential campaigns use Twitter as a publicity mechanism, including those of Ron Paul, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. Media outlets such as CNN have also started using Twitter to break news.
Twitter continues to suffer from a reputation for repeated outages.

Finally we get to the main reason for Barack Obama’s campaign successes, Facebook. All that's needed to join Facebook is a valid email address. To connect with coworkers or classmates, use your school or work email address to register. Once you register, join a regional network to connect with the people in your area. Facebook is made up of many networks, each
based around a company, region, or school. Join the networks that reflect your real-life communities to learn more about the people who work, live, or study around you.
Facebook's Platform enables anyone, anywhere, to build complete applications that you can choose to use. The possibilities are endless.
Define your experience on Facebook by choosing applications that are useful and relevant to your world.

• Facebook gives you four ways to connect with other people:
  
• Find people you e-mail.
  
• Search for people.
  
• Find people you Instant Message.
  
• Browse by Name.

The Website is free to users, but generates revenue from advertising
Consider what we have discussed that you can do with social networks:

• Teens, who have been using these networks from perhaps as young as 10 or younger, are not going to stop communicating with their friends just because they are over 17.
  
  
• Building a network of friends and their friends will open opportunities for marketing, new business ideas, a new job, and knowledgeable people who will be able to help you with your own problems.
  
  
• Build your own personal brand by participating in as many networks as you have time to do.
  
  
• Expand your professional reputation with consistent participation.
  
  
• Portray your best qualities so you make a favorable impression on prospective employers or business associates. You are going to be searched by everyone involved in such a meeting.
  
  
• Use your creative abilities to find other network uses.

Just as you are limited by time and distance restraints to the number of real friends you can have in reality (I believe three or four truly best friends is the limit) so you can actively participate in a limited number of social networks. My thoughts on those you should try if you have time to be active are:

• Facebook has shown its obvious credibility in the present Presidential primary political campaigns.
  
  
• MySpace is important because so many teens use it and will continue their use long after their teen years.
  
  
• LinkedIn is effective for career and personal branding purposes.
  
  
• Try Pownce because it seems to have a kind of snob appeal, perhaps because it was originally so exclusive.
  
  
• Twitter is used by so many local emergency organizations that it must be useful to get a message out, including marketing and other entrepreneurial uses.

All Internet sites are subject to instant termination because of financial problems, death of the Website operator, or any of a host of other reasons. The point is, don’t depend on any one of these sites to be around forever; it probably won’t be. Use as many outlets as you can.