Jaimie Dobson Internet Consultant

The use of social networking sites in business has really taken a grip over the last couple of years, but surely enough is enough now!

Not another social netwing website

Facebook, MySpace, Bebo plus many others have enjoyed phenomenal growth over the last 5 years, This is well documented with the young upstart Twitter outpacing many over the last 12 months.

Their use has leapt from the domain of kids and geeks over to the mainstream and more recently to business users with the opportunities presented by targeted marketing to the tens if not hundreds, of millions of users on sites such as Facebook and YouTube, becoming more accessible to organisations of all sizes everyday. It is said that to a large extent, the rule book is being partially rewritten as a direct result that these sites are making on the way people form opinions and decisions about a particular product or service.

Added to this , there’s also been an exponential rise of online communities dedicated to particular interest groups, brands and shared activities when it comes to professional business networking, with sites such as LinkedIn, Ecademy and Plaxo leading the field.

So social networking sites are all the rage at present it would seem!

Grasping this opportunity there’s now an emergence of third-party hosted applications such as Ning.com and SocialGo.com which allow one to launch one’s own and customised, networking site for one’s own particular interest group. Will it never end?

Socialise Me

Just a few short years ago clients were asking me integrate “Forums” or “Message Boards” into their websites. That request has fallen by the wayside in favour of “website socialisation”. This, unfortunately I have to say, doesn’t mean I have to take their website out for a few beers to meet a few girls! Instead it means they (the client) want to capitalize upon the opportunities that the online social networking scene can bring to their own website.

Their request on this front, often falls into two camps and either involves deploying “social media sharing or bookmarking buttons” to particular pages on their site – specifically to those pages that have constantly changing content such as News pages. Or it involves the deployment of a “Blog” onto a website. This latter request has now superseded the request for a “Forum” of yesterday as the “in thing” to have on a site.

Hours in the Day

Don’t get me wrong here.

Social networking websites have their place and can be great networking and promotional tools. But like any marketing activity, they need attention and work to make them effective. So given the massive rise in such sites with more coming online everyday; quite frankly, which ones do you concentrate your efforts on? After all there’s only a certain number of hours in a day.

On a weekly basis, I must receive half a dozen “invitations to connect” from my online networking associates whom I already know from either Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter (my three networking sites of choice). So what’s the point of connecting with them again on another site? Inevitably if I did choose to connect with them again, I’ll need to create yet another profile with yet another picture etc and quite frankly – I can’t be bothered.

Am I being cynical here or do we think enough is enough?

What’s your position – are we all socialised out?

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Tags: Social Networking