Social Identity: 7 Best Practices for Driving Registrations with Social Mediums
Enabling people to register using an existing identity from Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo,
or other provider is one of the most powerful registration tools to emerge in the last
few years. Registering people through an established online identity not only
streamlines the registration process but also gives your business a head start on
building deeper relationships with them.
As with any optimization effort, the devil is in the details. An effective system
requires as much attention to user experience as to technology. The most successful
implementations follow these seven best practices:
1. Put social network brands to work
2. Provide identity options
3. Communicate the value
4. Apply available data
5. Link accounts
6. Create visual cues
7. Analyze to optimize
Why Social Networking?
Why Social Networking?
Through social networking, people can use networks of online friends and group memberships to keep in touch with current friends, reconnect with old friends or create real–life friendships through similar interests or groups. Besides establishing important social relationships, social networking members can share their interests with other like–minded members by joining groups and forums. Some networking can also help members find a job or establish business contacts.
Most social networking websites also offer additional features. In addition to blogs and forums, members can express themselves by designing their profile page to reflect their personality. The most popular extra features include music and video sections. Members can read bios of their favorite music artists from the artist's profile page as well as listen to their favorite songs and watch music videos. The video section can include everything from member–generated videos from hundreds of subjects to TV clips and movie trailers.
What to Look For in Social Networking
The phenomenon of online social networking—made extremely popular by MySpace.com , has evolved to include more than the teenage stereotype looking to expand his/her network of online friends. People of all ages and backgrounds have discovered that they can enrich their lives through the contacts they make on a social networking website. Below are the criteria TopTenREVIEWS used to evaluate Social Networking websites.
Profiles
The heart and soul of social networking sites are user’s personal profiles. It’s like their own Internet sanctuary, a place where they can express their thoughts and feelings, post photographs and show off their network of friends. The most popular social network websites put a strong emphasis on the user’s profile, making it easy to use yet still reflective of the user’s personality.
Security
The Internet can be a dangerous place to post personal information. All social networks should provide the ability to set profiles to private in some way or another. Additionally they should have the ability to report and block users.
Networking Features
A good social network goes above and beyond just allowing users to post profiles and update pictures. Additional features should include music sections, video uploads, groups and more.
Search
The object of a social network is to find friends and expand relationships. Top social networking websites allows members to search for other members in a safe and easy to use environment. Common search functions include search by name, city, school and email address.
Help/Support
Most social network sites are self-explanatory. However, in the off-chance a user needs help there needs to be some way to contact the webmaster or answers in an FAQs section.
Legitimate Friend Focus
The growing trend for social networks is to communicate and keep in touch with people you already know. No one wants to be inundated with unsolicited spam friend requests. The best social network sites keep profiles and search options private enough that the only people that can find you are the ones actually looking for users in their own school or neighborhood networks. Even with a completely public profile, users shouldn’t be bothered with more than a couple of unsolicited comments or messages.
Info Source from TopTenReviews.com
Survey about Social Networkers Taking Action vs. Research
Performics is a Publicis-owned company that focuses on digital marketing optimization including assessments of how consumers talk about brands on the social web. It conducted an online survey of U.S. consumers who access at least one social network regularly and determined what kind of impact social networking has on the purchase process. 34% of social networkers had taken action on an ad they had seen on a social networking site by doing a further search on the product, while 30% had learned about a new product while on a social networking site. One quarter of respondents were making product recommendations while social networking.
Inspired by Social Media Networking
Both consumers and the media are obsessed with social media. Popular social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, are experiencing unprecedented growth and inspiring marketers in new and exciting ways. Smart companies—large and small—realize that the opportunities presented by social media are too good to pass up.
The Web continues to evolve from a one-way communications medium to a two-way conversational medium, giving consumers greater control and increasing marketing complexity. Not only can individual and business buyers easily research all available choices from suppliers and vendors, but they can also dialogue with experts and other consumers. They can easily ignore irrelevant marketing communications and turn their attention elsewhere instantaneously. And they ultimately make the purchase decisions that give them the best solutions to their problems—and the best user experiences.
Consequently, to influence purchase behavior of individuals and businesses, we marketers must keep abreast of how our customers and prospects use new and rapidly changing forms of digital communications. To be effective, it is critical to have up-to-date information about where our customers are on the Web, what will get their attention, and, in the end, what drives their buying decisions. In order to develop our marketing plans and implement go-to-market tactics, we must stay current on rapidly changing benchmarks, metrics, and trends in the customers’ use of interactive media.
Roy Young
President
MarketingProfs
Inbound Marketing Today
Inbound Marketing helps your business get found on the Internet by the right prospects, and convert more of those prospects into qualified leads and paying customers.
Today's buyers can no longer be reached with traditional approaches to marketing. The cold-calling, the trade shows, the trade advertising, are all more expensive, and less effective than just a couple of years ago. To get found by qualified prospects today, your company must be visible on blogs, social media platforms, and in search engine results pages. You'll also need solid lead tracking, lead nurturing, and marketing analytics to get a true picture of your entire closed loop marketing program.
Facebook Privacy: A Bewildering Tangle of Options
I actually thought Facebook was pretty invasive in the past, now it seems as if you need a an owners manual to protect your privacy. Check out this graphic displaying the size of their privacy policy, courtesy of The New York Times. Great design too!
Read more here: Facebook Privacy: A Bewildering Tangle of Options
How to Determine Your Facebook Fan Pages Value
Social media management company Vitrue has released a free tool today, the Social Page Evaluator, designed to help marketers get a better understanding of a Facebook Page’s value.
Just submit a Facebook Page URL and the app will come up with a valuation based on factors like number of fans, number of posts per day, number of interactions and so forth.
It’s a cool — if not completely scientific — way to gauge the potential value of your Facebook Page to advertisers. The formula used by the Social Page Evaluator is related to the formula that Vitrue released last month to estimate the relative value of Facebook Fans to big brands.
The tool, which was built over 63 hours in a Startup Weekend-style project, is adjustable and interactive. For instance, the base rate of Earned Media Value (or CPM in more traditional terms) is $5, but this can be adjusted to a higher or lower value depending on the brand in question.
Likewise, there is a “Fan-tasize” section that lets you manipulate other features like number of posts per day, engagement level and Fan count to see how that affects the valuation.
You can also compare a Facebook Page with up to three other brands at a time and view a Page’s value history. In addition to the valuation data, there is also a list of best practices for getting the most out of your Facebook Page.
So how accurate is this tool? It’s difficult to determine, as it is based on a formula that, while derived from a study of large brands, is obviously not going to be applicable to all companies. Still, it’s a fun, easy way to get an idea of the factors that impact a Facebook Page valuation. It’s also a good stepping stone for marketers to start thinking about the potential advertising power of a Facebook Page.
What do you think of the tool? Let us know on Chase The Web's Facebook Fan Page!
[ credit: Mashable.com]
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