Social Networking For Businesses & Advertising Space – Is Your Online Community Space Really Your Own?
Context based advertising has come leaps and bounds from old school advertising where every banner or text ad seemed quite random. Now, most sites know what you’re typing, what you’re thinking and display ads that you can connect with. This is supposed to be great not just for the consumers, but for the advertisers too — and it is….in most cases. Yet, sometimes I wonder “are online advertisements on social networking websites and communities getting a little too smart?” Here’s what I mean:
You are browsing through what seemed to be a well built online community for the InterContinental Hotels Group on Facebook. It looks like the admins and creators of the community have done a great job keeping the community active, responding to posts by customers and fans, and regularly posting photos and updates with the intention of making sure they remain loyal to the InterContinental brand. Everything seems perfect until you notice the Hyatt Hotel advertisement on the right hand side of the page! Looks kind of like the perfect customer drain hole! And the real kicker for those who put in the hours building a community for their business, is how their efforts are benefiting their rivals. With that being said — this is a risk every single business takes when opting for a hosted social platform to build their community, where of all the space on the website is not completely under their control.
We’ve often talked about the advantages of hosting and managing your own community portal using a social software platform with source code…and how sometimes having control over the smallest details of your website can save you the frustration of having to deal with unforeseen problems at a later stage. Control over branding and advertising space is one of the aspects that needs to be given serious thought before selecting a social software platform … and it’s easy to overlook initially. At the earlier stages, it’s not really an issue, as the focus is mainly around building the community — and often the quickest way to do that, is to sign up on a hosted community site and build it there. It’s only when the number of members on your business community grows do you start to notice the value of the space on your website. That’s usually when you start analyzing which pages get the most views, what parts of the pages get the most eyeballs, and where all the clicks are focused. At that point you also start thinking about modifications to the website, adding or moving components, making space for advertising and promoting certain things. If you’ve gone with a solution that doesn’t allow enough room for customization, this is also the point where you may just find yourself at a dead end.
Building and managing your own community has a downside as compared to putting one together on Facebook or a social networking site which already has a large user base. It will mean that you have to start and grow it from scratch. But is speed and growing a quick group of users the only objective? Online marketing pro Sonny Gill in a recent blog post said:
“Those people who are looking to help further the industry, build strong communities, help innovate, and are genuine in their actions. While on the flip side, you have the people looking for shortcuts, the easy road to infamy and a legion of thousands that they probably don’t even know. The people who think it’s a numbers game.”
Likewise, when you decide to build an online community for you business, it’s good to think beyond just how quickly you can add people to it and how many you can reach and influence. Think ahead about the branding and advertising options on your community space and the flexibility you will need in the future before selecting your platform. Does your technology allow you the space to make changes, should your community grow beyond what you anticipated? Do have administrative control over aspects that may influence your community one way or an other? …all important questions which can help you narrow down on the right platform.
Think about it before starting or you might find your self wondering some day if your online community is really your own — or is it someone else’s?
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I’ve been using Flock and Google reader. But I still don’t have it down. Maybe you have a better idea.