Say Hello to Social Networking

Chapter 2

Safko, The Social Media Bible

Social networks “develop the trust that ultimately creates influence among your customers,” Safko says in Chapter 2 of his book. He is careful to distinguish between getting on-line and selling stuff and using social networks to create opportunities to make sales. Increasingly, everybody’s decision making is tied to information gained through relationships on social networking sites.

But trust is a key ingredient in human relationships and networks, so Safko’s recommendation is to first join the network and listen to the discussion before becoming an active participant. It’s a matter of becoming an active and valued member of a network, not just a sales rep using the network for personal gain.

Safko’s life cycle for online social networks (visitor, lurker, troll; novices; regulars and leaders; and elders) is useful. I’ve seen the dynamic played out on the listservs and online communities I’ve participated in, and used terms to describe some of the network members – like newbies – but this is the the first time I’ve seen the whole cycle described in one place.

Reflecting on Dunbar’s number, I don’t think that social networking sites have changed this. They DO make it possible for anybody who wants to create a network of many hundreds or thousands of people, but with how many of those can one maintain “stable social relationships?” I don’t have research-based data to back up my hunch, but I think that number is still close to Dunbar’s 150 people for the vast majority of us.

Safko’s description of the leading several social networks is useful and instructive, but still suffers from Facebook’s decision not to participate in the book. This section also apparently contains some copy from the book’s first edition that wasn’t edited and updated for the second edition. On page 27, Safko writes that “MySpace is currently the biggest and most popular social network on the Internet …” It contradicts the information several paragraphs earlier that says Facebook is the largest.

The Expert Insight from Gretchen Howard of Google is a pretty useful description of how to conceive and begin carrying out an on-line advertising campaign (using Google AdWords, of course). In fact, Google seems to provide a lot of help and advice in using Adwords and intrerpreting the data,including a blog here.

Howard provides a step-by-step process based on sound advertising and marketing practice. I especially like her third step, “Track, test, adopt and thrive. You really need to adopt an attitude where you’re continually looking at the data that the online advertising provide you, and continue to experiment.”

In my opinion, that is key to jumping into social networking as a means of marketing. It’s a big challenge to maintain that attitude of experimentation, of being open to what the data is suggesting.

In my opinion, this chapter is full of good information and solid recommendations. As I move toward putting it into practice, my main question is: Where will I find the time?