I’ve been keeping an eye on Social Media for the past few years. It’s a buzzword for sure, and along with things like “User Generated Content” (UGC) and blogs, wikis and everything else, has become a major component for many company’s marketing.

However, most people just simply don’t understand it. Why is it so important? Is it more important than Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

SEO

This is simply (although it is not simple) making a website/page better for search engines to index and therefore bump up the page in the search engines (almost always Google) for specific keywords. It’s been a good earner for some people (mostly Google actually) for years, but it’s always smacked of slightly underhand if you ask me.

In my opinion, it’s important to optimise a website for SEO, but if that’s the only strategy, then frankly, you’re deluded.

Social Media

Social Media is essentially about generating and being involved in conversations. Mostly this is online and out of your control, but it’s becoming clear that it is an achievable goal to try to generate positive conversations and also keep an ear to the ground regarding negativity.  Dealing with those situations is nowhere near as simple as SEO and anyone that says it is, is lying.

Social Networks are all the rage, with getting pages on Facebook and applications, as well as the now obligatory twitter profile, but the interesting thing that most people are interested in is numbers of people.

Social Media is not about numbers

It’s about conversations. If you are aiming to get 10,000 followers on Twitter and 25,000 fans on your facebook page, good luck to you, but you’re probably barking up the wrong tree.

Focussing your energies on generating conversations will have much more of an effect than just numbers ever could. Getting people talking is much harder than bumping up numbers.

Conclusion

SEO is about ranking on Google and that’s fine. But Social Media is about amount of conversations and managing those conversations. Very very different.

Social Networks aren’t new

They are just better engineered websites that allow for a user’s personality to come out. That is the key, allowing user’s personality to flourish. That’s why they are compelling for friends and that’s why they are compelling for marketers.

However, the oldest still used wide appeal technical social network is email and that’s massively important. However, there is a change to needing to focus into niches with the social space, and that’s where applications come along.

Applications and Widgets

There is now a need for simple applications that add value to a user’s social networks. These can be full-blown applications, or widgets that sit within a user’s social network profile.  These applications can be vital to allowing a brand to get itself “out there” on mobile devices or for generating brand awareness on a social network.

Application Development

We at Vida can create social applications and widgets for you. We have transformed our business from building forums (many years ago) to building full blown social networks.  However, the landscape has changed again so now it is the users who choose what applications and widgets they use and they are on the networks. The networks want to keep them, so how do we engage with them there?  Developing widgets and applications.

Vida can develop strategies for social applications and widgets, and as such, we can provide the development resource for this as well.  We do social applications.  These are very different from normal websites, and are more complex to develop, and therefore will be costed differently, but they are very achievable for a marketing campaign or longer term for brand awareness.

Get in touch for your applications

iPhone applications, android applications, facebook applications, myspace applications, opensocial applications and widgets are all going to become much more important for brands, and marketing agencies need to become aware of them now.

For more information on how it can transform a brand, and generate a Return on Investment, contact Vida.

And The Top Mobile Social Networks Are…

which outlines how many mobile social networks are really impacting the mobile internet space.

It seems that users are wanting to use mobiles to interact on their normal social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace, instead of wanting something mobile specific. This makes a lot of sense, since most people’s social network is on a website, why would you try to put all your friends on a new one?

Transporting Your Network

All social networks are intended to keep you on their site, so most of them will not allow you to transport your network. Some, which are email based, do let you move the emails across, and others try to utilise your email network by contacting GMail (other email systems are available!) and the like.

It makes sense to aim to control the network, as Facebook does, because it decreases adoption of other networks.  This research seems to reveal that what users want is not functionality but their friends, and they appear to be willing to accept some non-mobile features to view information about their friends.

Strategy rethink for Mobile Social Networks?

So it seems that mobile social networks need to consider their strategies for how they are going to move or enhance their user’s desktop social network and provide services other than on the mobile. Without that, the companies that have the large desktop based social networks will just add on social mobile services. But maybe there is still a way…

If you want to discuss this further and how Vida can help with mobile social network strategy, then get in touch.