10 Specialized Social Networks For You To Join

The way we communicate has changed and social networks are now the center of our daily lives. We update our friends about our whereabouts, discuss what we had for dinner and post updates on events and cool articles we’ve read (feel free to share this one too).

But after using Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and the fading MySpace, how else can we use this amazing new phenomenon to our benefit? That’s where specialized social networks can be handy. Crazy about cooking? Would love to know what other people are buying?  Want to help poor people worldwide but can’t afford to do it alone? There is a network for all of these and many, many more.

BakeSpace

BakeSpace was launched in August 2006 by media producer Babette Pepaj and seems to have taken many hints from MySpace (besides the name). It allows you to upload videos and images, post a blog, and have your friends and recipes side by side. It also allows you to build and customize features with clever names, such as your own “online kitchen” and raid the “virtual pantry” (forums).  A great place for those who share a passion for cooking.

Blippy

Blippy is a fun and easy way to see and discuss the things people are buying. It works by posting purchases you’ve made to selected stores to their stream in a way that’s similar to Twitter, but with products. It can be surprisingly addictive to read what your friends and family are buying, or just browse the choices others have made.

Kiva

Want to join your friends and family and make a huge difference in someone’s life? That’s why Kiva was created. The idea is to use the power of community and social networking to help someone out of poverty by lending poor people all over the world enough money to start a business or improve their standard of living.

The minimum loan is $25, which gets added to the donations from other lenders to help fund someone’s dream in the poorest parts of places like Africa or South America. The reason it’s called a loan and not a donation is because they are partnered with organizations around the world to try to ensure that you get your money back. You create your lender’s page, pick who you want to lend to, invite your friends, share messages and sponsor people together.

You may also join one of the existing Kiva groups such as “The Beholders Group – Body, Mind and Spirit” (full disclosure, I run this one), “Team Yoga” or “Give Green – Environmental Loans“, among many others. Or better yet, you can create your own group and get everyone involved.

Patients Like Me

It seems strange to create a specialized social network that focuses on being sick, but if you think about it, the need for connection and understanding from others who are sharing the same experience can make “Patients Like Me” a very healing activity.

The site allows people who are going through treatment or have just found out they have a life changing condition find information, post their profile, discuss doctor visits and find emotional support. It can also be a great source of comfort to the family and friends of those who are going through any kind of health related crisis.

Baby Center Community

The Baby Center website has been around since 1997 and in 2008 they decided to launch their Baby Center Community, which is a social network for parents with young children of all ages to share their experiences, doubts and proud moments.

Virtual Tourist

With about 1 million members, Virtual Tourist is a great resource for those who love traveling and want to learn from and share experiences with fellow world explorers. It allows you to create your own travel map, shares images and activities and get a lot of information. They also have a very persuading way of ensuring you will add your personal pictures to the site. Their default profile picture is a sheep wearing a cap!!!

Digital Verse

A social network that is not as robust as your usual Facebook-like networks, but has the advantage of bringing a very targeted group of people together to share their poems and expose them to the world. Call yourself a poet? This site is for you.

deviantART

The deviantART site is one of the largest art websites in the world with 100 million original works of art and over 12 million members from 190 countries. It’s a great way to expose your art, which can be paintings, crafts, digital art and even Manga, and also allows you to sell it on the deviantART Shop.

Pingsta

So, geeks of the world (and I say that lovingly, since I am one of those geeks), you can now unite, but there is a catch. You must actually be accepted into this very private world of internet engineers by explaining your expertise and uploading your resume in the hopes of being granted an invitation. You may also prove yourself by answering 20 questions posted on their site or by getting an invitation from one of the members. Not for amateur geeks.

Flixter

Do you love movies? Love talking about them, learning about them and sharing comments about them? Then Flixter is for you. Even though it’s not even 3 years old, Flixter already is one of the largest movie sites on the web with over 15 million unique visitors and almost 2 billion movie ratings.

No one is ever truly alone. There are always groups of people who think like we do, share the same concerns or are excited by the same things we are. Now the web has given us thousands of ways to find those people. What specialized social networks do you belong to?

Yahoo Points the Way to the ‘Social Inbox’

Email was a huge innovation when it became widely available more than 10 years ago. It changed the way people communicated in both business and personal settings. And of course it radically changed the way businesses communicated with customers and prospective customers.

But the platform itself has not changed much in that time. Most email inboxes today look more or less the same way they did 10 years ago. Specifically, they follow a “last in-on top” hierarchy (though users have long had the ability to sort in other ways) and they mix all the classes of email together. At any given moment you can look into your inbox and have a note from a friend next to a CNN news alert next to a free shipping offer from J. Crew. And that doesn’t even take into account the corporate stuff.

And while this design was not necessarily intentional, it had a huge benefit for marketers. A user going to the inbox to check for email from friends and family will stumble across some (hopefully) great offers from marketers.

But now we are starting to see shifts in the way large mailbox providers construct the inbox experience, mostly in response to the loss of eyeball share from social networking sites — where an increasingly large share of person-to-person messaging is occurring. Dubbed “the social inbox” by industry pundits, these innovations focus on including social networking features (like status updates) within the inbox and also make it easier to find and respond to messages from friends and family.

The most recent foray into the trend came from Yahoo, which unveiled changes to its mail interface. The new UI features a “What’s new” tab that is displayed by default when you log in. This tab shows unread email from contacts (meaning any email address in your Yahoo address book) and connections (meaning people you are connected to through Yahoo). And, as part of an earlier update, the inbox also gives users filtering options for viewing email. You can now view “all” email, email just from contacts, or email just from connections.

Meanwhile, the “What’s New” tab includes other social media features like status updates from connections and contacts (people in the address book) from Flicker, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and more. You can read more about these changes — and see screen shots — at the Yahoo mail blog.

What should email marketer do in the wake of these changes? I see three key takeaways:

Change is the new constant: Mailbox UIs are probably going to change more frequently. There will be more innovation as Yahoo continues to iterate, and other large mailbox providers try their version of the social inbox. You are going to have to learn to adapt — quickly.

Engagement has a whole new meaning: Being a “contact” is more important than it used to be at Yahoo. In the past, “add to address book” has largely been a deliverability tactic. It now becomes more important at Yahoo. Perhaps it will become more important at other mailbox providers. What are you going to do to make it worth the subscriber’s while to add you as a contact? What value are you creating?

Friends with benefits: In addition to being in the address book, it may be that certain types of “friending” or “following” or “connecting” will also be important. Again, the same question: What can you offer Yahoo subscribers and others to make it worth their while to friend you or make you a connection? This also creates interesting opportunities to cross social media marketing with email marketing. For example, Yahoo’s “What’s New” tab shows tweets from connections before the messages in the inbox.

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3 Tried-n-True Ways to Decide Which Social Media Tools to Use

At a recent Social Media-themed breakfast event for New Hampshire’s Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, one speaker (Leslie Poston, co-author of Twitter for Dummies) told the assembled audience there were 537 different social networking sites online. 537! And that doesn’t even count all the networks on Ning and other services like it, which allow you to build your own social network using their templates, or custom-made communities like “Greenopolis,” or “Equestrian Life.”

So when it comes to deciding which social media platforms make the most sense to use, the options can be overwhelming – if you let them. However, with a little focus, guidance, and strategic thinking, you can just as easily simplify your choices.

What follows draws from our 6-week “Social Media Kick Start” Virtual Boot Camp, which expands on these topics with self-paced learning modules.

Let’s start by keeping these two very important questions in mind: Where is your audience now? And where are they going to be?

Even if your target audience isn’t on a particular social network right now, consider the fact that involvement is social networks is growing exponentially. (Heck, if Facebook were a country, it would have the 4th largest population in the world!) Not everyone was on the Web 5-10 years ago, but you could see where the trend was going. Same thing with social networks. Here’s how to dive in confidently.

1. Start with the Big Three.

That’s LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The odds that your audience is on one or more of these platforms right now is very high. And if they’re not on there, they will be by the time you finish reading this. Now, of the three, LinkedIn is the only one that doesn’t get tarred with the “It’s just for kids goofing off” brush. But consider this: The measurement company ComScore reported in April that the majority of Twitter users are 35+, and the 18-34 age group is growing as fast as the 55-64 age group. As for Facebook, InsideFacebook.com reports the largest group of users is between 26 and 44 years old, and the fastest growing demo is women 55 and over.

2. Budget your time and money.

These are your resources, and if you’re a small business owner, you’re using them with care these days. A platform like Twitter is about as simple as it gets – 5-minute sign up, a few communication conventions to learn as you go, then the Twitterverse is your oyster. Facebook, on the other hand, goes about as deep as they get in terms of customization opportunities. Consider learning and growing in this platform as a work in progress, and add, edit, expand and refresh as you go. Even LinkedIn has a lot of detail possibilities, too, but they also have a very helpful tool that tells you how complete your profile is, which can guide you through what options you need to finish to take maximum advantage of its features.

3. Follow the FUN!

It may sound frivolous at first, but there’s sound business sense behind it. First of all, as you play with each of the Big Three platforms, you’ll learn more about your own communication style, and how you like to experience your friends, contacts, and colleagues. Twitter presents quick snippets of insight, links, conversations, and opportunities to brainstorm on the fly. LinkedIn is more professional, following traditional and formal conventions. Facebook is all over the map, with nooks and crannies that’ll surprise you even after months of frequent use. In other words, if control is what you want, Facebook may be your nemesis, but if you dig spontaneity and possibilities from any direction, then hop on board.

The bottom line: if you pick a social network that you dread going to, you’ll find a way to put it off. If you’re not participating in the social network, then you won’t get much value out of it! What’s more, if you hate doing it, that’ll come through in your interactions. No one wants to connect with an unpleasant person. It’s just not good for business.

On the other hand, when you “follow the FUN,” you’ll make time for your social networking. You’ll laugh at the countless pathways – and diversions – available, and you’ll be able to get focused on the results you’re after with confidence and nimble clarity.

Then, as you expand beyond the Big Three, you’ll have a better sense of how to play in the social arena, and what features support your goals and style. Love taking photos? Love talking? Want to try out video? PowerPoint wiz? There are networks that support all media channels.

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Social Media: We Have Sinned

It’s time to atone.

Some may appreciate the timing, as it coincides with yesterday’s observance of Yom Kippur, Judaism’s Day of Atonement, the climax of a period of repentance. Everyone has some sins to atone for, including marketers and agencies trying to engage consumers through social media. Today, we’ll confess.

On the Day of Atonement, one of the most memorable prayers is a short confessional where a series of sins are listed alphabetically in Hebrew. It’s unlikely anyone reciting the confessional has committed all such sins over the past year, but one recognizes that these sins have been committed. Some sins listed are so broad, such as scorning and sinning willfully, that most likely everyone will have committed them.

Below is our confessional, for marketers and agencies. Similar to the spirit of the liturgy, we haven’t all committed all of these sins, but most of these transgressions should be familiar.

We Have Sinned

1. We have awkwardly applied metrics like click-through rates to social marketing programs when we could have found more appropriate ways to quantify results that aligned with our business objectives.
2. We have bribed consumers to be our friends without devising ways to connect with our real fans and sustain communication with them.
3. We have ceded control of our social programs to interns, or lawyers, or those who are not in the best position to be the faces and voices of our brands.
4. We have deceived ourselves, falling in love with our ideas without considering what would provide value for our target audience.
5. We have eavesdropped on consumers, instead of actually hearing them and listening to them.
6. We have failed to monitor social channels for discussions of our brands and competitors.
7. We have guessed at our target audience’s interests and activities rather than conducting research that could have provided real answers.
8. We have hurried into the newest, most-buzzed-about social spaces without developing a strategy.
9. We have imitated when we could have innovated.
10. We have judged competitors harshly for making the same mistakes we made.
11. We have killed ideas that were spot on in favor of pet projects that we wanted for our portfolios.
12. We have lost consumers by organizing social architectures that were impossible to navigate coherently.
13. We have mismanaged social marketing by shoehorning it into someone’s job description.
14. We have neglected to integrate social marketing with broader marketing programs.
15. We have overreached, hoping for content to go viral without investing in resources to properly create, distribute, and promote it.
16. We have partitioned our organizations so rigidly that we can’t plan earned and paid media together.
17. We have quarreled over who should own social media in our organization.
18. We have repurposed creative and messaging from other channels when we should have adapted or created it for these social spaces.
19. We have shortchanged social marketing by planning campaigns instead of ongoing programs.
20. We have tuned out consumers’ criticism when we could have engaged with them to better understand it, or we could have learned from it to ensure other consumers wouldn’t have such problems in the future.
21. We have undervalued and underfunded social programs to such an extent that we have set them up for failure.
22. We have violated consumers’ trust by not being fully transparent as to our identities and objectives.
23. We have wronged consumers by not respecting their privacy.
24. We have xenophobically avoided any forms of social media beyond the ones we use ourselves.
25. We have yelled when we could have conversed.
26. We have zigzagged between the path we knew was best and the path that was most convenient, even when we could have prevented our transgressions.

Acknowledging these sins is not the same as absolving ourselves of them, but it is the first step on the path to repentance. What we can hope and strive for us that next year, should our community as a whole revisit this confessional, the transgressions will seem more alien — a memory of how we were and a sign of how far we’ve come.

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4 Social Networking Pitfalls and How To Avoid Them

Social networking sites originally became popular as a way for friends to stay in touch with one another and to keep up-to-date with what was happening in their lives, but they quickly became a place for business owners to grow their networks too. These days you can use these sites as a business building tool, but, more importantly, you can get to know your prospects, clients, and colleagues in a more relaxed and friendly environment.

This means that if you’re active on these sites and regularly contributing and seeking out new connections you can very quickly build your network and have a ready audience of contacts who are interested in what you have to say, your services, programs, and products.

However, I hear of many solopreneurs saying that they’re spending hours of time on their social networking activities, whether that’s on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or one of the other popular social networking sites, but are not seeing any benefits as a result of their time i.e. the amount of time they put into social networking is not comparable to the returns they are seeing. And so they lose interest and wonder what all the fuss is about.

As with any of the list building strategies that I teach, the real key to success is consistency. If you decide that social networking is one of the lead generation strategies that you want to implement then you need to be consistent in your approach to make it successful. You need to be spending time each week (several times a week) visiting each of your social networks, contributing, and building relationships.

Even though there are many, many advantages to this latest marketing strategy, there are several pitfalls that can easily be avoided if you’re aware of what they are.

Today I’d like to share with you my top four social networking pitfalls so that you can avoid making these mistakes and so utilize this strategy to grow your network:

1. 1. Not updating regularly. If you’re a beginner in this area, then you may believe that all you have to do is sign up for an account at one of the more popular sites, add your details, and you’re all set. In order for this strategy to be effective, you need to be a regular contributor to the network, actively seek out new connections, and participate and post regularly.
2. 2. Your profile is lacking in information. Add pictures; make yourself sound interesting and fun! People want to know about you, what your interests are, and see you. Always include a photo, and, the beauty with social networking is that because it’s informal, you don’t always need your photo to be a professional head shot – a more informal photo works just as well; let your contacts see the ‘real’ you.
3. 3. Not thinking relationships first! Social networking is all about building relationships with those people in your network – it’s not about getting new clients. Although you’ve probably heard of colleagues getting new clients via social networking, it really is about creating and building relationships with those people in your network. Remember… relationships first!
4. 4. It’s not about sell, sell, sell! If all you’re doing when you visit the various sites and post your updates is pitch your latest program, product or service then it’s no wonder you’re not seeing results. Share information with your network, whether that’s your own information or you’re passing along information from clients and colleagues. The more you share, the greater your results will be.

Whichever social networking arena you’re active in (and it may be more than one) remember the “social” in social networking – it’s to build relationships, make new contacts, and socialize. Inform your network, not sell to them.

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