These lists are called Circles.
It is important to note that social networks are not just for the young. Internet users between ages 34-44 are dominating the social media space, becoming the fastest adopters of social media use. This audience represents the incoming wave of industry leaders since they will be the 50-year-olds likely running larger corporations and in charge of making major company purchasing decisions in 10 years. From our conversations with such industry folks, they understand that using social media helps them reach a variety of business goals efficiently, from positioning themselves as knowledgable, to finding new clients, to keeping a pulse on what is happening in the their industry.
While the large social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google+) can provide great reach and access to many people, small businesses are learning that the more niche, topic-specific social networks can actually provide better access to potential clients directly seeking their services. For example, CosMed Plastic Surgery Center (www.cosmedclinic.com) frequently posts answers to community health questions in plastic surgery and weight loss online communities: MakeMeHeal.com and ObesityHelp.com. People who participate on these forums represent a core audience for the plastic surgery center and allow them to build a more personal connection with potential customers who may hesitate to share health concerns on a more public forum such as Facebook.
Social media happens fast, and new niche networks and blogs arise almost daily. A great tool to help you stay current with these websites and also monitor the pulse of the online conversation your industry is Google Alerts. This is a free tool that will email you when your chosen keywords are talked about online. Simply go to google.com/alerts and enter keyword phrases, such as your company name and hot topics related to your industry, along with your email address to be notified each time anything related to these topics appears online. As professional social media and communications consultants, Google Alerts is an invaluable tool to discover new blogs and smaller, more niche communities that are discussing hot topics where our clients would benefit from being heard.
Sometimes what looks like the smallest online community to an outsider can actually have powerful voices developing opinions and dialogue that will eventually spill over to the more trendy social networks. Understanding these core audiences, who the key influencers are, what issues are most important to them and how to get your company, products and services in their good graces can be an invaluable asset. Listening, monitoring and helping to guide dialogue on these niche, smaller sites can help you better understand the thought process behind what motivates your core audiences to support your company and your future products and services.
This listening technique can also help you avoid a major PR nightmare on sensitive projects. It allows you to see negative comments coming before the conversations gain leverage in front of major media channels on the bigger social networks.
In addition to helping you discover new places your company should engage, setting up a Google Alert with your own company name as the keyword allows you to be notified anytime anyone online is talking about your company. Being able to listen in to what audiences are saying about you and having a chance to respond is what gives social media such powerful reach. If you are simply using social media to post press releases and company announcements you are missing the point of social networking. Monitoring the online responses to these press releases and announcements is the real power of social media.
As you dive deeper into social media, you will want to use more advanced social monitoring tools. Companies like Lithium Technologies (ScoutLabs.com) and Radian 6 (http://www.radian6.com) allow you to track and engage with anyone who is mentioning your company on the social web. Using either of these website tools, simply type in your company name or a product name and see what people on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, websites or news articles are saying about your company and products. Almost anything that is mentioned on the social web will pop up using these listening tools. These social monitoring tools go deeper than Google Alerts as you can actually click on the post from the application and respond to the online discussion in one step.
Social media monitoring tools can also be valuable at helping you monitor your competition. For example, while consulting for Verizon, we used the Scout Labs dashboard (now a part of Lithium’s Social Media Monitoring) to compare online sentiment for AT&T to Verizon. Within seconds, a graph showed that Verizon has more mentions and more positive overall sentiment on the social web than AT&T.
The social web is essentially the world’s biggest focus group allowing you true insight into what your customers are saying. Additionally and better than the focus group, the social web gives you the real-time ability to respond and add to this discussion. You don’t have to be a major company like Verizon to generate an overwhelming amount of social comments from customers that need responses from your company. Perhaps you are just in the midst of a heated online debate about a new project, which is developing hundreds of posts you’ll need to monitor. Fortunately, applications like Lithium’s Social Media Monitoring not only show you every place your company name is mentioned, but conveniently sorts posts in order of priority, so you can know which posts are most important to respond to. The program determines priorities based on several critical factors, such as how much traffic the web site gets, Google rank, how many people are actively reacting/responding to the post and perhaps most importantly, the online influence of the person who made the comment.
Understanding Key Influencers Within Your Target Audience Group
Determining the identity of key influencers within your online social networking circles can be critical to your goals – especially if you tend to carry controversy around specific projects or individuals within your company. How the key influencer in a social circle regards your company can make or break your mission. When this influencer loves your company or project, you can sit back and watch the positive energy flow, but get on their bad side, and you may be confronted with a PR nightmare.
No matter the size, every online community has its loudest voices. And these voices make up only 1% of the total community. But they are a powerful 1%. This select group is essentially the “creator.” They are the ones who start conversations and keep the discussions alive over the course of several days or weeks. The creators have a huge influence on the attitudes and energy of the social group.
Figure 2.3
It may appear that a social network is not active or that no one is listening due to the small percentage of participants actually creating content. As shown in figure 2.3, 10% of a community is what is known as “editors.” These members will post and contribute to conversations started by the “creators.” They are the ones who will simply “like*” something on Facebook, or contribute a “me too” type blog comment.
So what are the remaining 89% of the members doing? Listening.
Even though you may think no one is paying attention to your posts and comments, they are. Social media provides a voyeuristic view of what’s happening in your community. For the same reason reality television took off, social media offers a chance for people to listen in, see your ideas and hear what’s going on in a fairly anonymous way.
Finding New Employees On Linkedin
LinkedIn provides an ideal way for you to find new employees, vendors and even open yourself up to new customers and projects. In today’s online world, more and more people in charge of hiring look to recommendations on LinkedIn before anything else. Of our survey of business professionals, 73% are actively using LinkedIn, and more than half are using it to recruit and to connect with vendors, partners or subconsultants.
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