How to Protect Your Reputation Online | BNET

How to Protect Your Reputation Online | BNET

The Many Challenges of Social Network Sites

In this blog, I strive to provide a balanced viewpoint of both the benefits and challenges of a web strategy, it’s easy for us to become over-hyped and then fall right into the pit of exuberance.

From white label social networks to existing social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and on, there’s been much hoopa raised. Yet, we should always remember the challenges that are facing these tools, as there are many difficulties to overcome.

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The Many Challenges of Social Networks:
Each of the following hurdles can be overcome, but first, let’s identify them.

Difficult to Monetize
Even Google says it’s having a hard time monetizing social networks, why? The use case is completely different. Members aren’t hunting for information like they do on a search, instead they are communicating with each other, and self-expressing. (We’ve data to back that up too), Bakardo agrees. How bad is bad? “Marketers say as few as 4 in 10,000 people who see their ads on social networking sites click on them”

Excess of Players
In the case of the many white label social networks (white label means you can rebrand, and create your own Facebook), there are too many players in the space. As a result, I spoke with CIO magazine and share with them our thoughts on the future of these many products. Consolidation will happen, and many will be irrelevant.

As Marketers Move In, Users Move Out
Remember Friendster? Tribe, or waay back and eCircles? Nothing is new, as communities form, marketers will move in, and in some cases bastardize the experience and the hip, cool, influencers will leave to the next network.

Untrustworthy Member Data
In many cases (I’ve seen reports of up to one-third) of users submit inaccurate information on their profile. As a result, marketing efforts will not be aimed at the right audiences, members continuing to be an elusive target.

Lack of Metrics Makes Success Hard to Measure
For many marketers who want to deploy a campaign on a social network, access to server metrics isn’t always available. As a result, they have to often visually monitor the interaction on the site, or measure click throughs to their site. In some of the more sophisticated platforms, a crude dashboard is provided.

Stalkers and Other Unwanted Activity Ruins Lives
Child stalkers in MySpace continues to be a problem, and in some cases, masking oneself as someone else is easy, and to readily fool others. As a result, one young teen committed suicide from the deception, rejection, and embarrasment from a peer’s mother.

Privacy Concerns Mount as Developers Move In
The great hoopla and community push back from the recent Beacon experiment, launching of newsfeeds, and social networks sharing too much information with third party widget developers puts members at risk, and visibly makes them uncomfortable.

Strings Attached to Membership: Difficult to Leave
According to this NYT article, leaving Facebook is difficult, there are hooks, saved accounts, and ways to continue to reconnect to the site, even after you’ve left.

Plateau or Social Network Fatigue?
I’m starting to see some reports from sources that suggest that the usage of social networks are slowing down, if not reducing perhaps it’s from the endless tasks that occur, or the shinyness has rubbed off.

Successful Networks have hard time scaling
Facebook and Twitter (yes a social network too) are suffering from scaling issues, as a result, their sites have a great deal of downtime or latency. The complicated applications will only increase in intricacy as more users are added.

Loss in workplace productivity “Social not-working”
Companies, organizations, and individuals are concerned about the time wasted in managing social network profiles, in some cases, companies have banned Facebook from their employees, often using Firewalls. (submitted by Beth Kanter and David Mitchell in comments)

Got others? leave a comment
If you’ve got one that I missed, I may add it here and credit you.

10 Considerations for the Startup planning to offer to the Enterprise (and why many will fail)

Lately, I’ve been hearing from more startups that they want to get into the enterprise space. These consumer focused web startups are the ones we know and love with the clever non-sensical names, rounded corners, and domains missing the “e”.

For many startups, having enterprise customers is a great proposition, as it gives the opportunity for repeat revenue from a stable source, partnership opportunities, and maybe even chances for acquisition.

[While many startups are interested to offer their services to Enterprise companies, they underestimate the complexity. There are many overlooked requirements from culture to support that startups just don’t get]

Sadly, while we love these tools on the free open web for our personal uses, many of them aren’t ready for a smooth transition into an enterprise web teams and by serious business folks and executives. A new set of rigorous feature requirements need to be met, including disposing of the ‘fun brand’ and getting ready to support demanding corporate clients.

10 Considerations for the Startup planning to offer to the Enterprise

1) Most importantly, find a business opportunity or pain that you plan on fixing.

2) Re skinning: In many cases, offer a white label tool so it can be rebranded by the consumer.

3) Offer an ASP version as business units will want to adopt without the IT department. (Update: ASP as in Application Service Provider, so a web-version hosted on your servers, so they customer doesn’t have to download any software, or have to rely on IT to do this. Typepad, SalesForce, and SurveyMonkey are examples of this)

4) Later, evaluated offering a software version that IT and Engineering can download and use on internal or secured severs behind the firewall,

5) Build a robust system that won’t fail from heavy enterprise use, sadly, Twitter would never make it.

6) Develop login and permission systems that work with a variety of identity systems, ensure data can be easily transferred to clients, use industry standards.

7) Provide a healthy dashboard and metrics for the clients administrative team

8 ) Hire sales and account teams that have backgrounds in corporate. For initial sales with a business unit, expect to sail through, but expect rigorous testing, negotiations, and detailed contracts when dealing with corporate purchasing departments.

9) On demand support: Dealing with enterprise clients requires a higher degree of support, expect to jump, leap, and spring into action at the request of your corporate clients.

10) Get serious: consider rebranding and refocusing the tool. Refine or create a separate marketing effort to aim for the enterprise space, consider creating a sub-brand.

While it’s sure attractive for startups to want to offer their products to corporations, many have not thought through the implications and requirements to be enterprise class. Quite frankly, many won’t have the aptitude, resources, or time to do this right.

[Many startups will offer to the enterprise, but most will fail. Successful startups offering to the enterprise need to have maturity, and it’s not something that can be masked]

If I’ve missed any considerations, please extend the list, by leaving a comment or sharing from your own blog

A special note about terms: While it would have been so easy for me to use the term Enterprise 2.0 I used every precaution to actually describe and explain the concepts rather than just using that term. I hope that you too become mindful before using that term, as well as Web 2.0. Show your mastery: focus on descriptions and outcomes rather than buzzwords.

Social Network Stats: Facebook, MySpace, Reunion (Jan, 2008)

Sources
The ones from MySpace are handed to me from a member of the press, someone I have no reason not to trust, and the Facebook stats are from their own site.

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Facebook

Quick Analysis: The hot talked company Facebook has the highest growth rate, and at Forrester we predict it to achieve the same number of registered users as MySpace in Q4 of 2008, or early 2009 given the current growth rates. The widget platform, which launched summer 2007 has had strong growth as more than 13,000 applications have been launched. Please don’t call this the MySpace killer as each of these sites serves a different demographic, with a different purpose, and different tools. Facebook is more of a ‘lifestyle’ play that allows members to connect to each other.

General Growth
* More than 60 million active users
* An average of 250,000 new registrations per day since Jan. 2007
* An average of 3% weekly growth since Jan. 2007
* Active users doubling every 6 months

User Demographics
* Over 55,000 regional, work-related, collegiate, and high school networks
* More than half of Facebook users are outside of college
* The fastest growing demographic is those 25 years old and older
* Maintain 85 percent market share of 4-year U.S. universities

User Engagement
* Sixth-most trafficked site in the United States (comScore)
* More than 65 billion page views per month
* More than half of active users return daily
* People spend an average of 20 minutes on the site daily (comScore)

Applications
* No. 1 photo sharing application on the Web (comScore)
* Photo application draws more than twice as much traffic as the next three sites combined (comScore)
* More than 14 million photos uploaded daily
* More than 6 million active user groups on the site

International Growth
* Canada has the most users outside of the United States, with more than 7 million active users
* The U.K. is the third largest country with more than 7 million active users
* Remaining top 10 countries in order of active users (outside of the U.S., Canada and UK): Australia, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, South Africa, France, Hong Kong

Platform
* Over 7,000 applications have been built on Facebook Platform
* 100 new applications added per day
* More than 80% of Facebook members have used at least one application built on Facebook Platform

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MySpace

Quick Analysis: MySpace the largest Social Network in North America maintains a dominant position as media site, primarily aimed at youth, giving them the opportunity to relate to brands and bands, as well as self-express. This site will continue to do with advertisers and marketers. Expect to see more TV and video networks to integrate and work with MySpace, who has the new generation that Generation X was to MTV.

Metrics
· MySpace has more than 110 million monthly active users
around the globe
· We are the country’s trafficked site on the Internet
· 85% of MySpace users are of voting age (18 or older)
· 1 in 4 Americans is on MySpace, in the UK it’s as common to
have a MySpace as it is to own a dog

·On average 300,000 new people sign up to MySpace every day,
this month we broke a record and had 4.5 billion page views to the
site in one day.

We are localized and translated in more than 20 international
territories: U.S., UK, Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy,
Spain, Mexico, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, MySpace en
Espanol, Latin America, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and
Finland.

·MySpace is one of the fastest growing websites of all time,
we have:
·100 Billion rows of data
·14 Billion comments on the site
·20 Billion mails on the site total
·50 Million mails per day (more than Yahoo, Hotmail,
or Google)
·10 Billion friend relationships
·1.5 Billion images
·8 Million images being uploaded per day
·60,000 new videos being upload to MySpaceTV each day
·More than 8 million artists and bands on MySpace Music
Acts including Lily Allen, Sean Kingston, Arctic
Monkeys, Dane Cook discovered on the site by users

Company Details
·Launched in January 2004
·Acquired by Fox Interactive Media in October 2005
·Los Angeles-based
·Founded by Chris DeWolfe, CEO and Tom Anderson, President

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Reunion

Quick Analysis: This quiet company is profitable already, and is making some strong growth with repeat users that are buying services from the company, as well as advertising. Reunion caters to an older crowd that is seeking to connect with each other from school, childhood, work, or locations. It’s surprising that this company has 32 million registered and is already profitable.

Highlights
·Over 32 Million Registered Members, and Growing
·70+ Million Site People Searches Actively Tracked
·7+ Million Avg. Unique Visitors Monthly
·700,000+ Paying Subscribers

Competitive Detail
·Critical Mass of Post-Facebook Members, with 90% Over 25 Years Old
·Patented Technology to Keep Address Book Updated
·Proven, Balanced Revenue Model: Higher Value/Member With Subscription Model

Financial Summary
·Profitable Revenue Growth of over 100% every year without any external capital
·Ranked #664 in Inc. 5000 Top Companies
·4th Fastest-Growing Company in Los Angeles (LA Business Journal)
·Recently took 1st outside investment of $25M from Oak to accelerate growth

Facebook Sponsored Group Analysis: Target vs Wal-Mart

Web Strategist Connie Benson pointed out the Target Wal-Mart Sponsored group in Facebook isn’t getting a warm reception. As I cruised through the group, I noticed a much higher degree of interaction, amount of members, and community engagement.

[Target and Wal-Mart have both deployed a Sponsored Group within Facebook, each deploying contrasting strategies with different results]

Here’s a comparison of the two groups as of Sept 10th, 2007:
Please note, it’s impossible to tell who’s really behind some of these comments and threads, some could be hired on various services.

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Marketing Strategy
The timing is right to launch these site, as it’s back to school season

Wal-Mart: College students, dorm rooms
Target: College students, dorm rooms

URL to view live group:

Wal-Mart: Direct lnk (Facebook account required)
Target: Direct link (Facebook account required)

PR Firm:

Wal-Mart: Edelman
Target: ? (update: AKQA)

Launch Date, estimated:

Wal-Mart: Early August
Target: Early July

Features:

Wal-Mart:
“Your Personal Checklist” eCommerce links to Walmart.com
“The Roommate Style Match Quiz” Personal persona wizard, eCommerce hooks, very clever
“Mix it Up” Mix and match roommate styles
“SoundCheck” Media samples of popular bands
“College Store” Green products, Freshman tips
Target:
“Tip Me” Product Marketing images
“Is it edible” interactive animation, I found to be clever
“Not your mom’s checklist” eCommerce selector
“Find your soul furniture” customized product wizard
“Snoop for inspiration” Design ideas gallery
“Good roomate” Media animations with tips

Number of current members:

Wal-Mart: 1196
Target: 7106

Number of Discussion Threads:

Wal-Mart: Sadly, None, as feature is disabled
Target: 33 Discussion threads
Most are under 5 responses, however “Tips from someone with experience” (started by Target employee) has over 55

Number of Pictures:

Wal-Mart: 27
Target: 396 Photos, many appear to be CGM (can’t confirm)

Wall Posts Quantity:

Wal-Mart: 426
Target: 462

Blog Trackbacks (Technorati:

Wal-Mart: 6 Tracbacks
Target: 51 Trackbacks (most are from Marketing and PR professionals)

Anecdotal Opinions:

Wal-Mart: Very negative, details on this post
Target: Majority positive on wallposts

Other Metrics
I need data to check interaction levels, only Facebook and the respective companies will have this. I would want to see, time on site (attention), interaction levels, spikes and trends, and other information.

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Web Strategy Analysis: Embracing customer interaction yields Target as leader

[Brands that “release control” to customer involvement have an improved chance from brand stewardship, customer ownership, and consumer advocacy. Let go to gain more]

What’s the difference between the two strategies? Target is clearly involving students to shape and be part of the group, whereas Wal-Mart’s strategy appears to be more of interactive web design, which is evident as the discussion forum is not enabled. I also suggested to Wal-Mart to consider an authentic evangelism program, the comments suggest a female evangelist would be best.

Online advertising continues to grow, mainstream media bleeding (42% online vs -3% traditonal)

THe Internet Outsider demonstrates the formula most of us have already figured out, the web is causing a shift in advertising dollars (although not the most important attribute, but a key indicator to what’s changing)

“US advertising revenue at 4 big online media companies–Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), AOL (TWX), and MSN (MSFT)–grew by $1.3 billion in Q2, or 42%.

US advertising revenue at 15 big television, newspaper, magazine, radio, and outdoor companies (Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, etc.) shrank by $280 million in Q2, or 3%.”

42% online vs -3% traditional
Read the bottom line on this spreadsheet analysis. Google is growing hand over fist at 96% while NYT has a decrease by 6%.

Quite interesting that mainstream media would suggest that other factors were to blame such as the “real estate market” or “cyclical weakness.” Take a step back, look at how your kids are communicating, and see the forest.

When is the tipping point of advertising dollars being heavier online than on mainstream media? Collective research indicates 2011.

A Checklist: Before you select that White Label Social Networking Site

Questions to answer before contacting any White Label Social Networking site (feel free to add additional checkoff points below)

1) What business problem are you trying to fix? What’s broken? What does success look like (without mentioning features)

2) There are different tools for different problems, Are you sure a Social Networking site will fix this?

3) Where are your community/market/users currently?

4) Not sure? Then look again, don’t proceed farther until you find them.

5) Have you considered joining that community before creating your own? You know of the Walmart 10 week fiasco right? Trying to recreate MySpace doesn’t make sense because it already exists.

6) How open/closed to you want your community? Think about long term, does it scale?

7) What incentive are you creating with this SoNet that will drive users to your site and share?

I’m a big believer in using my blog (a one to many communication tool) to make my life efficient, so I may refer you to this post in request.

Consultants please read
Are you a consultant that focuses on evaluating, choosing, and implementing a solution? I encourage you to leave a thoughtful comment below that adds additional knowledge that will showcase and impress others, please no raw pitches. Perhaps add some addition points a buyer should look for.